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THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

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TORONTO 



THE EUROPEAN 
ANARCHY 



BY 

G^ LOWES DICKINSON 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1916 



All rights reserved 



■J} 3 



Copyright, igi6 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1916. 



/ 



/'-' 



APR 27 1916 

5)CI,A4278(18 



FOREWORD TO THE AMERICAN 
EDITION 

These pages were written in the hope that they 
might be read and considered by the more reason- 
able section of the British pubhc. But they are 
likely at the present moment to find more re- 
sponse in America than in England. The sym- 
pathies of Americans appear to be, generally and 
warmly, on the side of the alHes, because they rec- 
ognize that a German victory would imperil the 
principles and the spirit for which America stands. 
But Americans also recognize that no military 
victory or defeat can of itself secure that durable 
peace by which alone democratic liberties can 
be assured and developed. The whole system 
of international relations must be transformed 
by a deliberate act of policy if this result is to 
be achieved. The states must combine not in 
temporary alliances and counter-alliances, preg- 
nant with new wars, but in a union to develop 
the law of nations and to sustain it against law- 



6 FOREWORD 

breakers. As I write, this country is engaged in 
a campaign for preparedness. Preparedness for 
what? To enter that European competition 
in armaments, which alone is a sufficient cause 
of war? Or to put armaments, jointly with 
other states, behind law and against aggression, 
from whatever Power aggression may be threat- 
ened? To do the former would be merely to 
add to the dangers of war a new factor. To do 
the latter might start the nations on the road 
to a durable peace. Anarchy and destruction, 
or law and reconstruction, is the choice before 
the world; and the United States during the 
next months may largely help to determine 
which it shall be. A practical proposal for mak- 
ing the transition from anarchy to law is put 
forward by the American League to Enforce 
Peace. 1 It is to some such solution that this 
essay points. For it shows how behind this 
war, as behind wars in the past, lay not merely 
the aggression of Germany, but the whole tradi- 

^ League to Enforce Peace, American Branch, 70 Fifth 
Avenue, New York City. Hon. William Howard Taft, 
President; A. Lawrence Lowell, Chairman of Executive 
Committee; William H. Short, Secretary. 



FOREWORD 7 

tion and practice of European diplomacy. To 
take the lead in introducing into international 
relations that new policy which alone can guar- 
antee and preserve civilization may be the spe- 
cial mission and glory of the United States. 
On their action at this crisis of the race the future 
of society may depend. And if this little book 
shall have any smallest influence in clarifying 
and concentrating American opinion upon the 
problem to be solved, it will have fulfilled the 
purpose for which it was written. 

G. Lowes Dickinson. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

1. Introduction ..... 13 

Europe since the Fifteenth Century — MachiaveUian- 
ism — Empire and the Balance of Power. 

2. The Triple Alliance and the Entente . 17 

Belgian Dispatches of 1905-14. 

3. Great Britain ..... 23 

The Policy of Great Britain — Essentially an Overseas 
Power. 

4. France ...... 27 

The Policy of France since 1870 — Peace and Imperial- 
ism — Conflicting Elements. 

5. Russia ...... 32 

The Policy of Russia — Especially towards Austria. 

6. Austria-Hungary . . . -37 

The Policy of Austria-Hungary — Especially towards the 
Balkans. 

7. Germany ...... 39 

The Policy of Germany — From 1866 to the Decade 
1890-1900 — A Change. 

8. Opinion in Germany . . . .46 

German "Romanticism" — New Ambitions. 

9. Opinion about Germany . . . 57 

Bourdon — Beyens — Cambon — Summary. 

10. German Policy from 1890-1900 . . 67 

Relation to Great Britain — ^The Navy. 
9 



lO 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

11. Vain Attempts at Harmony . . -75 

Great Britain's Efforts for Arbitration — Mutual Suspi- 
cion. 

12. Europe since the Decade 1890-1900 . 91 

13. Germany and Turkey . . . .94 

The Bagdad Railway. 

14. Austria and the Balkans . . .101 

15. Morocco ...... 108 

16. The Last Years ..... 116 

Before the War— The Outbreak of War. 

17. The Responsibility and the Moral . .127 

The Pursuit of Power and Wealth. 

18. The Settlement . . . -133 

19. The Change Needed . . . .141 

Change of Outlook and Change of System — An Inter- 
national League — International Law and Control. 



THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 



THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

I. Introduction 

In the great and tragic history of Europe there 
is a turning-point that marks the defeat of the 
ideal of a world-order and the definite acceptance 
of international anarchy. That turning-point 
is the emergence of the sovereign State at the 
end of the fifteenth century. And it is sym- 
bolical of all that was to follow that at that point 
stands, looking down the vista of the centuries, 
the brilliant and sinister figure of Machiavelli. 
From that date onwards international policy 
has meant Machiavellianism. Sometimes the 
masters of the craft, like Catherine de Medici 
or Napoleon, have avowed it; sometimes, like 
Frederick the Great, they have disclaimed it. 
But always they have practised it. They could 
not, indeed, practise anything else. For it is 
as true of an aggregation of States as of an ag- 
gregation of individuals that, whatever moral 
sentiments may prevail, if there is no common 
law and no common force the best intentions 
will be deieated by lack of confidence and se- 
curity. Mutual fear and mutual suspicion, ag- 

13 



14 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

gression masquerading as defence and defence 
masquerading as aggression, will be the protag- 
onists in the bloody drama; and there will be, 
what Hobbes truly asserted to be the essence 
of such a situation, a chronic state of war, open 
or veiled. For peace itseK will be a latent war; 
and the more the States arm to prevent a con- 
flict the more certainly will it be provoked, since 
to one or another it will always seem a better 
chance to have it now than to have it on worse 
conditions later. Some one State at any moment 
may be the immediate offender; but the main 
and permanent offence is common to all States. 
It is the anarchy which they are all responsible 
for perpetuating. 

While this anarchy continues the struggle 
between States wiU tend to assume a certain 
stereotyped form. One will endeavour to ac- 
quire supremacy over the others for motives at 
once of security and of domination, the others 
will combine to defeat it, and history will turn 
upon the two poles of empire and the balance 
of power. So it has been in Europe, and so it 
will continue to be, until either empire is achieved, 
as once it was achieved by Rome, or a common 
law and a common authority is estabHshed by 
agreement. In the past empire over Europe has 
been sought by Spain, by Austria, and by France; 



INTRODUCTION 15 

and soldiers, politicians, and professors in Ger- 
many have sought, and seek, to secure it now 
for Germany. On the other hand. Great Britain 
has long stood, as she stands now, for the bal- 
ance of power. As ambitious, as quarrelsome, 
and as aggressive as other States, her geograph- 
ical position has directed her aims overseas rather 
than toward the Continent of Europe. Since 
the fifteenth century her power has never men- 
aced the Continent. On the contrary, her own 
interest has dictated that she should resist there 
the enterprise of empire, and join in the defen- 
sive efforts of the threatened States. To any 
State of Europe that has conceived the ambi- 
tion to dominate the Continent this policy of 
England has seemed as contrary to the interests 
of civilization as the poHcy of the Papacy ap- 
peared in Italy to an Itahan patriot like Mach- 
iavelli. He wanted Italy enslaved, in order 
that it might be united. And so do some Ger- 
mans now want Europe enslaved, that it may 
have peace under Germany. They accuse Eng- 
land of perpetuating for egotistic ends the state 
of anarchy. But it was not thus that Germans 
viewed British policy when the Power that 
was to give peace to Europe was not Germany, 
but France. In this long and bloody game the 
partners are always changing, and as partners 



i6 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

change so do views. One thing only does not 
change, the fundamental anarchy. International 
relations, it is agreed, can only turn upon force. 
It is the disposition and grouping of the forces 
alone that can or does vary. 

But Europe is not the only scene of the con- 
flict between empire and the balance. Since 
the sixteenth century the European States have 
been contending for mastery, not only over one 
another, but over the world. Colonial empires 
have risen and fallen. Portugal, Spain, Hol- 
land, in turn have won and lost. England and 
France have won, lost, and regained. In 
the twentieth century Great Britain reaps the 
reward of her European conflicts in the Empire 
(wrongly so-called) on which the sun never sets. 
Next to her comes France, in Africa and the 
East; while Germany looks out with discontented 
eyes on a world already occupied, and, cherish- 
ing the same ambitions all great States have 
cherished before her, finds the time too mature 
for their accomplishment by the methods that 
availed in the past. Thus, not only in Europe 
but on the larger stage of the world the inter- 
national rivalry is pursued. But it is the same 
rivalry and it proceeds from the same cause: 
the mutual aggression and defence of beings hv- 
ing in a "state of nature." 



ALLIANCE AND ENTENTE 17 

Without this historical background no spe- 
cial study of the events that led up to the 
present war can be either just or intelligible. 
The feeling of every nation about itself and 
its neighbours is determined by the history 
of the past and by the way in which that 
history is regarded. The picture looks dif- 
ferent from every point of view. Lideed, 
a comprehension of the causes of the war could 
only be fully attained by one who should 
know, not only the most secret thoughts 
of the few men who directly brought it about, 
but also the prejudices and preconceptions 
of the pubKc opinion in each nation. There 
is nobody who possesses these qualifications. 
But in the absence of such a historian these 
imperfect notes are set down in the hope 
that they may offer a counterpoise to some 
of the wilder passions that sweep over all 
peoples in time of war and threaten to pre- 
pare for Europe a future even worse than its 
past has been. 

2. The Triple Alliance and the Entente 

First, let us remind ourselves in general of 
the situation that prevailed in Europe during 
the ten years preceding the war. It was 



i8 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

in that period that the Entente between France, 
Russia, and England was formed and consoli- 
dated, over against the existing Triple Alliance 
between Germany, Austria, and Italy. Neither 
of these combinations was in its origin and pur- 
pose aggressive.^ 

^The alliance between Germany and Austria, which 
dates from 1879, was formed to guarantee the two States 
against an attack by Russia. Its terms are: — 

"i. If, contrary to what is to be expected and con- 
trary to the sincere desire of the two high contracting 
parties, one of the two Empires should be attacked by 
Russia, the two high contracting parties are bound re- 
ciprocally to assist one another with the whole military 
force of their Empire, and further not to make peace 
except conjointly and by common consent. 

"2. If one of the high contracting Powers should be 
attacked by another Power, the other high contracting 
party engages itself, by the present act, not only not 
to support the aggressor against its ally, but at least 
to observe a benevolent neutrality with regard to the 
other contracting party. If, however, in the case sup- 
posed the attacking Power should be supported by Rus- 
sia, whether by active co-operation or by military meas- 
ures which should menace the Power attacked, then the 
obligation of mutual assistance with all military forces, 
as stipulated in the preceding article, would immediately 
come into force, and the military operations of the high 
contracting parties would be in that case conducted 
jointly until the conclusion of peace." 

Italy acceded to the Alliance in 1882. The engage- 



ALLIANCE AND ENTENTE 19 

And, so far as Great Britain was concerned, the 
relations she entered into with France and with 
Russia were directed in each case to the set- 
tlement of long outstanding differences with- 
out special reference to the German Powers. 
But it is impossible in the European an- 
archy that any arrangements should be made 

ment is defensive. Each of the three parties is to come to 
the assistance of the others if attacked by a third party. 

The treaty of Germany with Austria was supple- 
mented in 1884 by a treaty with Russia, known as the 
"Reinsurance Treaty," whereby Germany bound her- 
self not to join Austria in an attack upon Russia. This 
treaty lapsed in the year 1890, and the lapse, it is pre- 
sumed, prepared the way for the rapprochement between 
Russia and France. 

The text of the treaty of 1894 between France and 
Russia has never been published. It is supposed to be 
a treaty of mutual defence in case of an aggressive attack. 
The Power from whom attack is expected is probably 
named, as in the treaty between Germany and Austria. 
It is probably for that reason that the treaty was not 
published. The accession of Great Britain to what then 
became known as the "Triple Entente" is determined by 
the treaty of 1904 with France, whereby France abandoned 
her opposition to the British occupation of Egypt in 
return for a free hand in Morocco; and by the treaty of 
1907 with Russia, whereby the two Powers regulated 
their relations in Persia, Afghanistan, and Thibet. There 
is no mention in either case of an attack, or a defence 
against attack, by any other Power. 



20 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

between any States which do not arouse sus- 
picion in others. And the drawing together 
of the Powers of the Entente did in fact appear 
to Germany as a menace. She believed that 
she was being threatened by an aggressive com- 
bination, just as, on the other hand, she herself 
seemed to the Powers of the Entente a danger 
to be guarded against. This apprehension on the 
part of Germany is sometimes thought to have 
been mere pretence, but there is every reason to 
suppose it to have been genuine. The policy of 
the Entente did in fact, on a number of occasions, 
come into collision with that of Germany. The 
arming and counter-arming was continuous. And 
the very fact that from the side of the Entente 
it seemed that Germany was always the aggressor, 
should suggest to us that from the other side 
the opposite impression would prevail. That, in 
fact, it did prevail is clear not only from the 
constant assertions of German statesmen and of 
the German Press, but from contemporary ob- 
servations made by the representatives of a State 
not itself involved in either of the opposing com- 
binations. The dispatches of the Belgian am- 
bassadors at Berlin, Paris, and London during 
the years 1905 to 1914^ show a constant impres- 

^ These were published by the Norddeutsche Allge- 
meine Zeitung, and are reprinted under the title "Bel- 



ALLIANCE AND ENTENTE 21 

sion that the Entente was a hostile combination 
directed against Germany and engineered, in the 
earlier years, for that purpose by King Ed- 
ward VII. This impression of the Belgian rep- 
resentatives is no proof, it is true, of the real 
intentions of the Entente, but it is proof of how 
they did in fact appear to outsiders. And it is 
irrelevant, whether or no it be true, to urge that 
the Belgians were indoctrinated with the Ger- 
man view; since precisely the fact that they 
could be so indoctrinated would show that the 
view was on the face of it plausible. We see, 
then, in these dispatches the way in which the 
policy of the Entente could appear to observers 
outside it. I give illustrations from Berlin, Paris, 
and London. 

On May 30, 1908, Baron Greindl, Belgian 
Ambassador at Berlin, writes as follows: — 

Call it an alliance, entente, or what you will, the group- 
ing of the Powers arranged by the personal intervention 

gische Aktenstiicke," 1905-14 (Ernst Siegfried Mittler 
and Sons, Berlin). Their authenticity, as far as I know, 
has not been disputed. On the other hand, it is to be 
assumed that they have been very carefully "edited" 
by the German to make a particular impression. My 
view of the policy of Germany or of the Entente is in 
no sense based upon them. I adduce them as evidence 
of contemporary feeling and opinion. 



22 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

of the King of England exists, and if it is not a direct 
and immediate threat of war against Germany (it would 
be too much to say that it was that), it constitutes none 
the less a diminution of her security. The necessary 
pacifist declarations, which, no doubt, will be repeated 
at Reval, signify very little, emanating as they do from 
three Powers which, like Russia and England, have just 
carried through successfully, without any motive except 
the desire for aggrandizement, and without even a plau- 
sible pretext, wars of conquest in Manchuria and the 
Transvaal, or which, like France, is proceeding at this 
moment to the conquest of Morocco, in contempt of 
solemn promises, and without any title except the cession 
of British rights, which never existed. 

On May 24, 1907, the Comte de Lalaing, 
Belgian Ambassador at London, writes: — 

A certain section of the Press, called here the Yellow 
Press, bears to a great extent the responsibility for the 
hostile feeling between the two nations. ... It is plain 
enough that official England is quietly pursuing a policy 
opposed to Germany and aimed at her isolation, and 
that King Edward has not hesitated to use his personal 
influence in the service of this scheme. But it is cer- 
tainly exceedingly dangerous to poison public opinion 
in the open manner adopted by these irresponsible jour- 
nals. 

Again, on July 28, 191 1, in the midst of the 
Morocco crisis, Baron Guillaume, Belgian Am- 
bassador at Paris, writes: — 



GREAT BRITAIN 23 

I have great confidence in the pacific sentiments of 
the Emperor William, in spite of the too frequent exag- 
geration of some of his gestures. He will not allow himself 
to be drawn on farther than he chooses by the exuberant 
temperament and clumsy manners of his very intelligent 
Minister of Foreign Affairs (Kiderlen-Waechter). I feel, 
in general, less faith in the desire of Great Britain for 
peace. She would not be sorry to see the others eat one 
another up. ... As I thought from the beginning, it 
is in London that the key to the situation lies. It is there 
only that it can become grave. The French wUl yield on 
all the points for the sake of peace. It is not the same with 
the English, who will not compromise on certain prin- 
ciples and certain claims. 

3. Great Britain 

Having established this general fact that a 
state of mutual suspicion and fear prevailed 
between Germany and the Powers of the Triple 
Entente, let us next consider the positions and 
purposes of the various States involved. First, 
let us take Great Britain, of which we ought to 
know most. Great Britain is the head of an 
Empire, and of one, in point of territory and 
population, the greatest the world has ever seen. 
This Empire has been acquired by trade and 
settlement, backed or preceded by military 
force. And to acquire and hold it, it has been 
necessary to wage war after war, not only over- 



24 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

seas but on the continent of Europe. It is, 
however, as we have aheady noticed, a fact, 
and a cardinal fact, that since the fifteenth 
century British ambitions have not been di- 
rected to extending empire over the continent 
of Europe. On the contrary, we have resisted 
by arms every attempt made by other Powers 
in that direction. That is what we have meant 
by maintaining the "balance of power." We 
have acted, no doubt, in our own interest, or 
in what we thought to be such; but in doing 
so we have made ourselves the champions of 
those European nations that have been threat- 
ened by the excessive power of their neighbours. 
British imperialism has thus, for four centuries, 
not endangered but guaranteed the independ- 
ence of the European States. Further, our 
Empire is so large that we can hardly extend it 
without danger of being unable to administer 
and protect it. We claim, therefore, that we 
have neither the need nor the desire to wage 
wars of conquest. But we ought not to be sur- 
prised if this attitude is not accepted without 
reserve by other nations. For during the last 
half-century we have, in fact, waged wars to 
annex Egypt, the Soudan, the South African 
Republics, and Burmah, to say nothing of the 
succession of minor wars which have given us 



GREAT BRITAIN 25 

Zululand, Rhodesia, Nigeria, and Uganda. Odd 
as it does, I believe, genuinely seem to most 
Englishmen, we are regarded on the Continent 
as the most aggressive Power in the world, al- 
though our aggression is not upon Europe. We 
cannot expect, therefore, that our professions 
of peaceableness should be taken very seri- 
ously by outsiders. Nevertheless it is, I believe, 
true that, at any rate during the last fifteen 
years, those professions have been genuine. 
Our statesmen, of both parties, have honestly 
desired and intended to keep the peace of the 
world. And they have been assisted in this 
by a genuine and increasing desire for peace 
in the nation. The Liberal Government in 
particular has encouraged projects of arbitra- 
tion and of disarmament; and Sir Edward Grey 
is probably the most pacific Minister that ever 
held ofl&ce in a great nation. But our past in- 
evitably discredits, in this respect, our future. 
And when we profess peace it is not unnatural 
that other nations should suspect a snare. 

Moreover, this desire for peace on our 
part is conditional upon the maintenance of 
the status quo and of our naval supremacy. 
Our vast interests in every part of the world 
make us a factor everywhere to be reckoned 
with. East, west, north, and south, no other 



26 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

Power can take a step without finding us in 
the path. Those States, therefore, which, un- 
like ourselves, are desirous farther to ex- 
tend their power and influence beyond the 
seas, must always reckon with us, particu- 
larly if, with that end in view, by increasing 
their naval strength they seem to threaten our 
supremacy at sea. This attitude of ours is 
not to be blamed, but it must always make 
difficult the maintenance of friendly relations 
with ambitious Powers. In the past our dif- 
ficulties have been mainly with Russia and 
France. In recent years they have been with 
Germany. For Germany, since 1898, for the 
first time in her history, has been in a position, 
and has made the choice, to become a World- 
Power. For that reason, as well as to protect 
her commerce, she has built a navy. And for 
that reason we, pursuing our traditional policy 
of opposing the strongest continental Powers 
have drawn away from her and towards Russia 
and France. We did not, indeed, enter upon 
our arrangements with these latter Powers be- 
cause of aggressive intentions towards Germany. 
But the growth of German sea-power drove us 
more and more to rely upon the Entente in case 
it should be necessary for us to defend ourselves. 
All this followed inevitably from the logic of the 



FRANCE , 27 

position, given the European anarchy. I state it 
for the sake of exposition, not of criticism, and 
I do not imagine any reader will quarrel with my 
statement. 

4. France 

Let us turn now to France. Since 1870 we 
find contending there, with varying fortunes 
and strength, two opposite currents of senti- 
ment and policy. One was that of revanche 
against Germany, inspired by the old tradi- 
tions of glory and hegemony, associated with 
hopes of a monarchist or imperialistic revolu- 
tion, and directed, in the first place, to a re- 
covery of Alsace-Lorraine. The other policy 
was that of peace abroad and socialistic trans- 
formation at home, inspired by the modern ideals 
of justice and fraternity, and supported by the 
best of the younger generation of philosophers, 
poets, and artists, as well as by the bulk of the 
working class. Nowhere have these two cur- 
rents of contemporary aspiration met and con- 
tended as fiercely as in France. The Dreyfus 
case was the most striking act in the great 
drama. But it was not the concluding one. 
French militarism, in that affair, was scotched 
but not killed, and the contest was never fiercer 
than in the years immediately preceding the 



28 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

war. The fighters for peace were the Socialists, 
under their leader, Jaures, the one great man 
in the public life of Europe. While recogniz- 
ing the urgent need for adequate national de- 
fence, Jaures laboured so to organize it that 
it could not be mistaken for nor converted into 
aggression. He laboured, at the same time, 
to remove the cause of the danger. In the year 
1 9 13, under Swiss auspices, a meeting of French 
and German pacifists was arranged at Berne. 
To this meeting there proceeded 167 French 
deputies and 48 senators. The Baron d'Estour- 
nelles de Constant was president of the French 
bureau, and Jaures one of the vice-presidents. 
The result was disappointing. The German 
participation was small and less influential than 
the French, and no agreement could be reached 
on the burning question of Alsace-Lorraine. 
But the French Socialists continued, up to the 
eve of the war, to fight for peace with an en- 
ergy, an inteUigence, and a determination shown 
in no other country. The assassination of Jaures 
was a symbol of the assassination of peace; but 
the assassin was a Frenchman. 

For if, in France, the current for peace 
ran strong in these latter years, so did the cur- 
rent for war. French chauvinism had waxed 
and waned, but it was never extinguished. 



FRANCE ag 

After 1870 it centred not only about Alsace- 
Lorraine, but also about the colonial ex- 
pansion which took from that date a new 
lease of life in France, as it had done in 
England after the loss of the American colo- 
nies. Directly encouraged by Bismarck, France 
annexed Tunis in 1881. The annexation of 
Tunis led up at last to that of Morocco. Other 
territory had been seized in the Far East, and 
France became, next to ourselves, the greatest 
colonial Power. This policy could not be pur- 
sued without friction, and the principal friction 
at the beginning was with ourselves. Once 
at least, in the Fashoda crisis, the two coim- 
tries were on the verge of war, and it was not 
till the Entente of 1904 that their relations were 
adjusted on a basis of give-and-take. But by 
that time Germany had come into the colonial 
field, and the Entente with England meant 
new friction with Germany, turning upon French 
designs in Morocco. In this matter Great Britain 
supported her ally, and the incident of Agadir 
in 191 1 showed the solidity of the Entente. This 
demonstration no doubt strengthened the hands 
of the aggressive elements in France, and later 
on the influence of M. Delcasse and M. Poin- 
care was believed in certain quarters to have 
given new energy to this direction of French 



30 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

policy. This tendency to chauvinism was recog- 
nized as a menace to peace, and we find reflec- 
tions of that feeling in the Belgian dispatches. 
Thus, for instance, Baron Guillaume, Belgian 
minister at Paris, writes on February 21, 19 13, 
of M. Poincare: — 

It is under his Ministry that the military, and slightly 
chauvinistic instincts of the French people have awakened. 
His hand can be seen in this modification; it is to be hoped 
that his poUtical intelligence, practical and cool, will 
save him from all exaggeration in this course. The notable 
increase of German armaments which supervenes at the 
moment of M. Poincare's entrance at the Elysee will 
increase the danger of a too nationalistic orientation of 
the policy of France. 

Again, on March 3, 1913 : — 

The German Ambassador said to me on Saturday: 
"The political situation is much improved in the last 
forty-eight hours; the tension is generally relaxed; one 
may hope for a return to peace in the near future. But 
what does not improve is the state of public opinion in 
France and Germany with regard to the relations be- 
tween the two countries. We are persuaded in Germany 
that a spirit of chauvinism having revived, we have to 
fear an attack by the Republic. In France they express 
the same fear with regard to us. The consequence of 
these misunderstandings is to ruin us both. I do not 
know where we are going on this perilous route. Will not a 
man appear of sufficient goodwill and prestige to recall 



FRANCE 31 

every one to reason? All this is the more ridiculous 
because, during the crisis we are traversing, the two 
Governments have given proof of the most pacific senti- 
ments, and have continually relied upon one another to 
avoid conflicts." 

On this Baron Guillaume comments:— 

Baron Schoen is perfectly right. I am not in a position 
to examine German opinion, but I note every day how 
public opinion in France becomes more suspicious and 
chauvinistic. One meets people who assure one that a 
war with Germany in the near future is certain and in- 
evitable. People regret it, but make up their minds 
to it. . . . They demand, almost by acclamation, an 
immediate vote for every means of increasing the defen- 
sive power of France. The most reasonable men assert 
that it is necessary to arm to the teeth to frighten the 
enemy and prevent war. 

On April i6th he reports a conversation with 
M. Pichon, in which the latter says : — 

Among us, too, there is a spirit of chauvinism which 
is increasing, which I deplore, and against which we 
ought to react. Half the theatres in Paris now play 
chauvinistic and nationaUstic pieces. 

The note of alarm becomes more urgent as 
the days go on. On January 16, 1914, the Baron 
writes: — 

I have already had the honour to tell you that it is 
MM. Poincare, Delcasse, Millerand and their friends 



32 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

who have invented and pursued the nationalistic and 
chauvinistic policy which menaces to-day the peace of 
Europe, and of which we have noted the renaissance. 
It is a danger for Europe and for Belgium. I see in it 
the greatest peril, which menaces the peace of Europe 
to-day; not that I have the right to suppose that the 
Government of the Republic is disposed deliberately to 
trouble the peace, rather I believe the contrary; but the 
attitude that the Barthou Cabinet has taken up is, in my 
judgment, the determining cause of an excess of mil- 
itaristic tendencies in Germany. 

It is clear from these quotations, and it is 
for this reason alone that I give them, that France, 
supported by the other members of the Triple 
Entente, could appear, and did appear, as much 
a menace to Germany as Germany appeared a 
menace to France; that in France, as in other 
countries, there was jingoism as well as pacifism; 
and that the inability of French public opinion 
to acquiesce in the loss of Alsace-Lorraine was 
an active factor in the unrest of Europe. Once 
more I state these facts, I do not criticize them. 
They are essential to the comprehension of the 
international situation. 

5. Russia 

We have spoken so far of the West. But 
the Entente between France and Russia, dat- 



RUSSIA 33 

ing from 1894, brought the latter into direct 
contact with Eastern policy. The motives and 
even the terms of the Dual Alliance are imper- 
fectly known. Considerations of high finance 
are supposed to have been an important factor 
in it. But the main intention, no doubt, was 
to strengthen both Powers in the case of a pos- 
sible conflict with Germany. The chances of 
war between Germany and France were thus 
definitely increased, for now there could hardly 
be an Eastern war without a Western one. 
Germany must therefore regard herseh as com- 
pelled to wage war, if war should come, on both 
fronts; and in all her fears or her ambitions this 
consideration must play a principal part. Fric- 
tion in the East must involve friction in the 
West, and vice versa. What were the causes 
of friction in the West we have seen. Let us 
now consider the cause of friction in the East. 
The relations of Russia to Germany have 
been and are of a confused and complicated 
character, changing as circumstances and per- 
sonalities change. But one permanent factor 
has been the sympathy between the governing 
elements in the two countries. The governing 
class in Russia, indeed, has not only been in- 
spired by German ideas, it has been largely 
recruited from men of German stock; and it 



34 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

has manifested all the contempt and hatred 
which is characteristic of the German bureaucracy 
for the ideals of democracy, Hberty, and free 
thought. The two Governments have always 
been ready to combine against popular insur- 
rections, and in particular against every attempt 
of the Poles to recover their liberty. They have 
been drawn and held together by a common 
interest in tyranny, and the renewal of that 
co-operation is one of the dangers of the future. 
On the other hand, apart from and in opposi- 
tion to this common political interest, there 
exists between the two nations a strong racial 
antagonism. The Russian temperament is rad- 
ically opposed to the German. The one expresses 
itself in Panslavism, the other in Pangerman- 
ism. And this opposition of temperament is 
likely to be deeper and more enduring than the 
sympathy of the one autocracy with the other. 
But apart from this racial factor, there is in 
the south-east an opposition of political ambi- 
tion. Primarily, the Balkan question is an Austro- 
Russian rather than a Russo-German one. Bis- 
marck professed himself indifferent to the fate 
of the Balkan peoples, and even avowed a will- 
ingness to see Russia at Constantinople. But 
recent years have seen, in this respect, a great 
change. The alliance between Germany and 



RUSSIA 35 

Austria, dating from 1879, has become closer 
and closer as the Powers of the Entente have 
drawn together in what appeared to be a men- 
acing combination. It has been, for some time 
past, a cardinal principle of German policy to 
support her ally in the Balkans, and this deter- 
mination has been increased by German ambi- 
tions in the East. The ancient dream of Russia 
to possess Constantinople has been coxmtered 
by the new German dream of a hegemony over 
the near East based upon the through route 
from Berlin via Vienna and Constantinople to 
Bagdad; and this political opposition has been 
of late years the determining factor in the re- 
lationship of the two Powers. The danger of 
a Russo-German conflict has thus been very 
great, and since the Russo-French Entente Ger- 
many, as we have already pointed out, has seen 
herself menaced on either front by a war which 
would immediately endanger both. 

Turning once more to the Belgian dispatches, 
we find such hints as the following. On Octo- 
ber 24, 1912, the Comte de Lalaing, Belgian 
Ambassador to London, writes as follows: — 

The French Ambassador, who must have special rea- 
sons for speaking thus, has repeated to me several times 
that the greatest danger for the maintenance of the peace 
of Europe consists in the indiscipUne and the personal 



36 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

policy of the Russian agents. They are ahnost all ardent 
Panslavists, and it is to them that must be imputed the 
responsibility for the events that are occurring. Beyond 
a doubt they will make themselves the secret instigators 
for an intervention of their country in the Balkan conflict. 

On November 30, 1912, Baron de Beyens 
writes from Berlin: — 

At the end of last week a report was spread in the 
chancelleries of Europe that M. Sazonov had aban- 
doned the struggle against the Court party which wishes 
to drag Russia into war. 

On June 9, 1914, Baron Guillaume writes 
from Paris: — 

Is it true that the Cabinet of St. Petersburg has im- 
posed upon this country [France] the adoption of the law 
of three years, and would now bring to bear the whole 
weight of its influence to ensure its maintenance? I 
have not been able to obtain light upon this delicate 
point, but it would be all the more serious, inasmuch as 
the men who direct the Empire of the Tsars cannot be 
unaware that the effort thus demanded of the French na- 
tion is excessive, and cannot be long sustained. Is, then, 
the attitude of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg based upon 
the conviction that events are so imminent that it will be 
possible to use the tool it intends to put into the hands of 
its ally? 

What a sinister vista is opened up by this 
passage! I have no wish to insinuate that the 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 37 

suspicion here expressed was justified. It is 
the suspicion itseK that is the point. Dimly we 
see, as through a mist, the figures of the ar- 
chitects of war. We see that the forces they 
wield are ambition and pride, jealousy and fear; 
that these are all-pervasive; that they afifect 
all Governments and all nations, and are fostered 
by conditions for which all alike are responsible. 
It will be understood, of course, that in bring- 
ing out the fact that there was national chauvin- 
ism in Russia and that this found its excuse 
in the unstable equilibrium of Europe, I am 
making no attack on Russian policy. I do not 
pretend to know whether these elements of opin- 
ion actually influenced the policy of the Gov- 
ernment. But they certainly influenced Ger- 
man fears, and without a knowledge of them 
it is impossible to understand German policy. 
The reader must bear in mind this source of 
friction along with the others when we come 
to consider that policy in detail. 

6. Austria-Hungary 

Turning now to Austria-Hungary, we find 
in her the Power to whom the immediate occa- 
sion of the war was due, the Power, moreover, 
who contributed in large measure to its remoter 



38 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

causes. Austria-Hungary is a State, but not a 
nation. It has no natural bond to hold its popula- 
tions together, and it continues its political 
existence by force and fraud, by the connivance 
and the self-interest of other States, rather than 
by any inherent principle of vitality. It is in 
relation to the Balkan States that this insta- 
bility has been most marked and most danger- 
ous. Since the kingdom of Serbia acquired its 
independent existence it has been a centre draw- 
ing to itseh the discontent and the ambitions 
of the Slav populations under the Dual Mon- 
archy. The reaHzation of those ambitions im- 
plies the disruption of the Austro-Hungarian 
State. But behind the Southern Slavs stands 
Russia, and any attempt to change the political 
status in the Balkans has thus meant, for years 
past, acute risk of war between the two Em- 
pires that border them. This poHtical rivalry 
has accentuated the racial antagonism between 
German and Slav, and was the immediate origin 
of the war which presents itself to Englishmen 
as one primarily between Germany and the West- 
ern Powers. -^^ 
On the position of Italy it is not necessary 
to dwell. It had long been suspected that she 
was a doubtful factor in the Triple AUiance, and 
the event has proved that this suspicion was 



,/ 



GERMANY 1866-1870 39 

correct. But though Italy has participated in 
the war, her action had no part in producing 
it. And we need not here indicate the course 
and the motives of her policy. 

7. Germany 

Having thus indicated briefly the position, 
the perils, and the ambitions of the other Great 
Powers of Europe, let us turn to consider the 
proper subject of this essay, the policy of Ger- 
many. And first let us dwell on the all-important 
fact that Germany, as a Great Power, is a crea- 
tion of the last fifty years. Before 1866 there 
was a loose confederation of German States, 
after 1870 there was an Empire of the Germans. 
The transformation was the work of Bismarck, 
and it was accomplished by "blood and iron." 
Whether it could have been accomplished other- 
wise is matter of speculation. That it was ac- 
complished so is a fact, and a fact of tragic sig- 
nificance. For it established among Germans 
the prestige of force and fraud, and gave them 
as their national hero the man whose most char- 
acteristic act was the falsification of the Ems 
telegram. If the unification could have been 
achieved in 1848 instead of in 1870, if the free 
and generous idealism of that epoch could have 



40 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

triumphed, as it deserved to, if Germans had 
not bartered away their souls for the sake of 
the kingdom of this world, we might have been 
spared this last and most terrible act in the 
bloody drama of European history. If even, 
after 1866, 1870 had not been provoked, the 
catastrophe that is destroying Europe before 
our eyes might never have overwhelmed us. 
In the crisis of 1870 the French minister who 
fought so long and with such tenacity for peace 
saw and expressed, with the lucidity of his na- 
tion, what the real issue was for Germany and 
for Europe: — 

There exists, it is true, a barbarous Germany, greedy 
of battles and conquest, the Germany of the country 
squires; there exists a Germany pharisaic and iniquitous, 
the Germany of all the unintelligible pedants whose 
empty lucubrations and microscopic researches have 
been so imduly vaunted. But these two Germanics are 
not the great Germany, that of the artists, the poets, 
the thinkers, that of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Goethe, 
Schiller, Heine, Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel, Liebig. This 
latter Germany is good, generous, humane, pacific; it 
finds expression in the touching phrase of Goethe, who 
when asked to write against us replied that he could 
not find it in his heart to hate the French. If we do not 
oppose the natural movement of German unity, if we 
allow it to complete itself quietly by successive stages, 
it will not give supremacy to the barbarous and sophistical 
Germany, it wUl assure it to the Germany of intellect 



GERMANY 1866-1870 41 

and culture. War, on the other hand, would establish, 
during a time impossible to calculate, the domination 
of the Germany of the sc[uiresj,nd^£,^edaiits.^ 

The generous dream was not to be realized. 
French chauvinism fell into the trap Bismarck 
had prepared for it. Yet even at the last mo- 
ment his war would have escaped him had he 
not recaptured it by fraud. The publication 
of the Ems telegram made the conflict inevi- 
table, and one of the most hideous and sinister 
scenes in all history is that in which the three 
conspirators, Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon, 
"suddenly recovered their pleasure in eating 
and drinking," because, by publishing a lie, 
they had secured the certain death in battle of 
hundreds and thousands of young men. The 
spirit of Bismarck has infected the whole public 
life of Germany and of Europe. It has given 
a new lease to the poUtical philosophy of Mach- 
iavelli, and made of every budding statesman 
and historian a solemn or a cynical defender of 
the gospel of force. But, though this be true, 
we have no right therefore to assume that there 
is some peculiar wickedness which marks off 
German policy from that of all other nations. 
Machiavellianism is the common heritage of 

1 Emile OUivier, "L'Empire Liberal." 



42 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

Europe. It is the translation into idea of the 
fact of international anarchy. Germans have 
been more candid and brutal than others in their 
expression and application of it, but statesmen, 
politicians, publicists, and historians in every 
nation accept it, under a thicker or thinner veil 
of plausible sophisms. It is ever3Avhere the iron 
hand within the silken glove. It is the great 
European tradition. 

Although, moreover, it was by these methods 
that Bismarck accomplished the unification of 
Germany, his later policy was, by common con- 
sent, a policy of peace. War had done its part, 
and the new Germany required all its energies 
to build up its internal prosperity and strength. 
In 1875, it is true, Bismarck was credited with 
the intention to fall once more upon France. 
The fact does not seem to be clearly established. 
At any rate, if such was his intention, it was 
frustrated by the intervention of Russia and of 
Great Britain. During the thirty-nine years 
that followed Germany kept the peace. 

While France, England, and Russia waged 
wars on a great scale, and while the former Powers 
acquired enormous extensions of territory, the 
only military operations undertaken by Germany 
were against African natives in her dependencies 
and against China in 1900. The conduct of the 



GERMANY 1890-1900 43 

German troops appears, it is true, to have been 
distinguished, in this latter expedition, by a bru- 
tality which stood out in relief even in that orgy 
of slaughter and loot. But we must remember 
that they were specially ordered by their Imperial 
master, in the name of Jesus Christ, to show 
no mercy and give no quarter. Apart from this, 
it will not be disputed, by any one who knows 
the facts, that during the first twenty years or 
so_after 1875 Germany was the Power whose 
diplomacy was the least disturbing to Europe. 
The chief friction during that period was between 
Russia and France and Great Britain, and it 
was one or other of these Powers, according to 
the angle of vision, which was regarded as offer- 
ing the menace of aggression. If there has been 
a German plot against the peace of the world, it 
does not data from before the decade 1 890-1 900. 
The close of that decade marks, in fact, a new 
epoch in German policy. The years of peace 
had been distinguished by the development of 
industry and trade and internal organization. 
The population increased from forty milhons in 
1870 to over sixty-five millions at the present 
date. Foreign trade increased more than ten- 
fold. National pride and ambition grew with 
the growth of prosperity and force, and senti- 
ment as well as need impelled German policy 



44 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

to claim a share of influence outside Europe in 
that greater world for the control of which the 
other nations were struggling. Already Bis- 
marck, though with reluctance and scepticism, 
had acquired for his country by negotiation large 
areas in Africa. But that did not satisfy the 
ambitions of the colonial party. The new Kaiser 
put himself at the head of the new movement, 
and announced that henceforth nothing must be 
done in any part of the world without the cog- 
nizance and acquiescence of Germany. 

Thus there entered a new competitor upon 
the stage of the world, and his advent of necessity 
was disconcerting and annoying to the earlier 
comers. But is there reason to suppose that, 
from that moment, German policy was definitely 
aiming at empire, and was prepared to provoke 
war to achieve it? Strictly, no answer can be 
given to this question. The remoter intentions 
of statesmen are rarely avowed to others, and, 
perhaps, rarely to themselves. Their poUcy is, 
indeed, less continuous, less definite, and more 
at the mercy of events than observers or critics 
are apt to suppose. It is not probable that Ger- 
many, any more than any other country in Eu- 
rope, was pursuing during those years a definite 
plan, thought out and predetermined in every 
point. 



GERMANY 45 

In Germany, as elsewhere, both in home and 
foreign affairs, there was an intense and unceas- 
ing conflict of competing forces and ideas. In 
Germany, as elsewhere, policy must have adapted 
itself to circumstances, different personalities 
must have given it different directions at different 
times. We have not the information at our dis- 
posal which woidd enable us to trace in detail 
the devious course of diplomacy in any of the 
countries of Europe. What we know something 
about is the general situation, and the action, 
in fact, taken at certain moments. The rest 
must be, for the present, mainly matter of 
conjecture. With this word of caution, let us 
now proceed to examine the policy of Ger- 
many. 

The general situation we have already indi- 
cated. We have shown how the armed peace, 
which is the chronic malady of Europe, had as- 
sumed during the ten years from 1904 to 1914 
that specially dangerous form which grouped 
the Great Powers in two opposite camps — the 
Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. We 
have seen, in the case of Great Britain, France, 
Russia, and Austria-Hungary, how they came 
to take their places in that constellation. We 
have now to put Germany in its setting in the 
picture. 



46 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

Germany, then, in the first place, Uke the 
other Powers, had occasion to anticipate 
war. It might be made from the West, on the 
question of Alsace-Lorraine; it might be made 
from the East, on the question of the Bal- 
kans. In either case, the system of alliances 
was likely to bring into play other States 
than those immediately involved, and the Ger- 
man Powers might find themselves attacked on 
all fronts, while they knew in the latter years 
that they could not count upon the support of 
Italy. 

A reasonable prudence, if nothing else, must 
keep Germany armed and apprehensive. But 
besides the maintenance of what she had, Ger- 
many was now ambitious to secure her share of 
"world-power." Let us examine in what spirit 
and by what acts she endeavoured to make her 
claim good. 

First, what was the tone of public opinion 
in Germany during these critical years? 

8. Opinion in Germany 

Since the outbreak of the war the pamph- 
let literature in the countries of the Entente 
has been full of citations from German po- 
litical writers. In England, in particular, the 



OPINION IN GERMANY 47 

names and works of Bernhardi and of Treitschke 
have become more familiar than they appear to 
have been in Germany prior to the war. This 
method of selecting for polemical purposes certain 
tendencies of sentiment and theory, and ignoring 
all others, is one which could be applied, with 
damaging results, to any country in the world. 
Mr. Angell has shown in his "Prussianism in 
England" how it might be applied to ourselves; 
and a German, no doubt, into whose hands that 
book might fall would draw conclusions about 
public opinion here similar to those which we 
have drawn about public opinion in Germany. 
There is jingoism in all countries, as there is 
pacifism in all countries. Nevertheless, I think 
it is true to say that the jingoism of Germany 
has been peculiar both in its intensity and in 
its character. This special quality appears to 
be due both to the temperament and to the 
recent history of the German nation. The 
Germans are romantic, as the French are im- 
pulsive, the English sentimental, and the Rus- 
sians religious. There is some real meaning 
in these generalisations. They are easily to 
be felt when one comes into contact with a 
nation, though they may be hard to establish 
or define. When I say that the Germans are 
romantic, I mean that they do not easily or 



48 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

willingly see things as they are. Their tempera- 
ment is like a medium of coloured glass. It 
magnifies, distorts, conceals, transmutes. And 
this is as true when their intellectual attitude 
is realistic as when it is idealistic. In the Ger- 
many of the past, the Germany of small States, 
to which all non-Germans look back with such 
sympathy and such regret, their thinkers and 
poets were inspired by grandiose intellectual 
abstractions. They saw ideas, like gods, mov- 
ing the world, and actual men and women, actual 
events and things, were but the passing symbols 
of these supernatural powers; 1866 and 1870 
ended all that. The unification of Germany, 
in the way we have discussed, diverted all their 
interest from speculation about the universe, 
life, and mankind, to the material interests of 
their new country. Germany became the pre- 
occupation of all Germans, From abstractions 
they turned with a new intoxication to what 
they conceived to be the concrete. Entering 
thus late upon the stage of national politics, 
they devoted themselves, with their accustomed 
thoroughness, to learning and bettering what 
they conceived to be the principles and the prac- 
tice which had given success to other nations. 
In this quest no scruples should deter them, no 
sentimentality hamper, no universal ideas dis- 



OPINION IN GERMANY 49 

tract. Yet this, after all, was but German ro- 
manticism assuming another form. The objects, 
it is true, were different. "Actuality" had taken 
the place of ideals, Germany of Humanity. But 
by the German vision the new objects were no 
less distorted than the old. In dealing with 
"Real-politik" (which is the German transla- 
tion of Machiavellianism), with "expansion," 
with "survival of the fittest," and all the other 
shibboleths of world-policy, their outlook re- 
mained as absolute and abstract as before, as 
contemptuous of temperament and measure, as 
blind to those compromises and qualifications, 
those decencies, so to speak, of nature, by which 
reality is constituted. The Germans now saw 
men instead of gods, but they saw them as trees 
walking. 

German imperialism, then, while it involves 
the same intellectual presuppositions, the same 
confusions, the same erroneous arguments, the 
same short-sighted ambitions, as the imperial- 
ism of other countries, exhibits them all in an 
extreme degree. All peoples admire themselves. 
But the self-adoration of Germans is so naive, 
so frank, so unqualified, as to seem sheerly ridicu- 
lous to more experienced nations.^ The English 

^ As I write I come across the following, cited from a 



so THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

and the French, too, believe their civilization 
to be the best in the world. But English common- 
sense and French sanity would prevent them 
from announcing to other peoples that they pro- 
posed to conquer them, morally or materially, 
for their good. All Jingoes admire and desire 
war. But nowhere else in the modem world is 
to be found such a debauch of "romantic" en- 
thusiasm, such a wilful blindness to all the reali- 
ties of war, as Germany has manifested both 
before and since the outbreak of this world- 
catastrophe. A reader of German newspapers 
and tracts gets at last a feeHng of nausea at the 
very words Wir Deutsche, followed by the eter- 
nal Helden, Heldenthum, Heldenthat, and is in- 
clined to thank God if he indeed belong to a 
nation sane enough to be composed of Handler. 

The very antithesis between Helden (heroes) 
and Handler (hucksters), with which all Ger- 

book of songs composed for German combatants under 
the title "Der deutsche Zorn:" — 

Wir sind die Meister aller Welt 
In alien ernsten Dingen, 

Was Man als fremd euch hochlichst preist 
Um eurer Einfalt Willen, 
1st deutschen Ursprungs allermeist, 
Und tragt nur fremde Hiillen. 



OPINION IN GERMANY 51 

many is ringing, is an illustration of the romantic 
quality that vitiates their intelligence. In spite 
of the fact that they are one of the greatest trad- 
ing and manufacturing nations of the world, 
and that precisely the fear of losing their trade 
and markets has been, as they constantly assert, 
a chief cause that has driven them to war, they 
speak as though Germany were a kind of knight- 
errant, innocent of all material ambitions, wan- 
dering through the world in the pure, disinter- 
ested service of God and man. On the other 
hand, because England is a great commercial 
Power, they suppose that no Englishman lives 
for anything but profit. Because they them- 
selves have conscription, and have to fight or 
be shot, they infer that every German is a noble 
warrior. Because the English volunteer, they 
assume that they only volunteer for their pay. 
Germany, to them, is a hero clad in white armour, 
magnanimous, long-suffering, and invincible. 
Other nations are little seedy figures in black 
coats, inspired exclusively by hatred and jeal- 
ousy of the noble German, incapable of a gen- 
erous emotion or an honourable act, and destined, 
by the judgment of history, to be saved, if they 
can be saved at all, by the great soul and domi- 
nating intellect of the Teuton. 
It is in this intoxicating atmosphere of tem- 



52 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

perament and mood that the ideas and ambi- 
tions of German imperialists work and move. 
They are essentially the same as those of im- 
perialists in other countries. Their philosophy 
of history assumes an endless series of wars, due 
to the inevitable expansion of rival States. Their 
ethics means a belief in force and a disbelief in 
everything else. Their science is a crude mis- 
application of Darwinism, combined with in- 
vincible ignorance of the true bearings of science 
upon life, and especially of those facts and de- 
ductions about biological heredity which, once 
they are understood, will make it plain that 
war degrades the stock of all nations, victorious 
and vanquished alike, and that the decline of 
civilizations is far more plausibly to be attrib- 
uted to this cause than to the moral decadence 
of which history is always ready, after the event, 
to accuse the defeated Power. One peculiarity, 
perhaps, there is in the outlook of German im- 
perialism, and that is its emphasis on an un- 
intelligible and unreal abstraction of "race." 
Germans, it is thought, are by biological quahty 
the salt of the earth. Every really great man in 
Europe, since the break-up of the Roman Em- 
pire, has been a German, even though it might 
appear, at first sight, to an uninstructed ob- 
server, that he was an Italian or a Frenchman 



OPmiON IN GERMANY 53 

or a Spaniard. Not all Germans, however, are, 
they hold, as yet included in the German Em- 
pire, or even in the German- Austrian combination. 
The Flemish are Germans, the Dutch are Ger- 
mans, the English even are Germans, or were 
before the war had made them, in Germany's 
eyes, the offscouring of mankind. Thus, a great 
task lies before the German Empire: on the 
one hand, to bring within its fold the German 
stocks that have strayed from it in the wan- 
derings of history; on the other, to reduce under 
German authority those other stocks that are 
not worthy to share directly in the citizenship 
of the Fatherland. The dreams of conquest 
which are the real essence of all imperialism 
are thus supported in Germany by arguments 
peculiar to Germans. But the arguments put 
forward are not the real determinants of the 
attitude. The attitude, in any country, what- 
ever it may be called, rests at bottom on sheer 
national vanity. It is the behef in the inherent 
superiority of one's own civiHzation, and the 
desire to extend it, by force if need be, through- 
out the world. It matters little what arguments 
in its support this passion to dominate may 
gamer from that twilight region in which the 
advanced guard of science is labouring patiently 
to comprehend Nature and mankind. Men 



54 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

take from the treasury of truth what they are 
able to take. And what imperiahsts take is a 
mirror to their own ambition and pride. 

Now, as to the ambitions of this German 
jingoism there is no manner of doubt. Ger- 
mans are nothing if not frank. And this kind 
of German does want to conquer and annex, 
not only outside Europe but within it. We 
must not, however, infer that the whole of Ger- 
many has been infected with this virus. The 
summary I have set down in the last few pages 
represents the impression made on an unsym- 
pathetic mind by the literature of Pangerman- 
ism. Emerging from such reading — and it is 
the principal reading of German origin which 
has been offered to the British public since the 
war — there is a momentary illusion, "That is 
Germany!" Of course it is not, any more than 
the Morning Post or the National Review is Eng- 
land. Germans, in fact, during recent years 
have taken a prominent place in pacifism as 
well as in imperialism. Men like Schiicking and 
Quidde and Fried are at least as well known as 
men like Treitschke and Bernhardi. Opinion 
in Germany, as in every other country, has 
been various and conflicting. And the pacific 
tendencies have been better organized, if not 
more active, there than elsewhere, for they have 



OPINION IN GERMANY 55 

been associated with the huge and disciplined 
forces of the Social-Democrats. Indeed, the 
mass of the people, left alone, is everywhere 
pacific. I do not forget the very important 
fact that German education, elementary and 
higher, has been deliberately directed to incul- 
cate patriotic feeling, that the doctrine of armed 
force as the highest manifestation of the State 
has been industriously propagated by the au- 
thorities, and that the unification of Germany 
by force has given to the cult of force a meaning 
and a popularity probably unknown in any other 
country. But in most men, for good or for evil, 
the lessons of education can be quickly obliter- 
ated by the experience of life. In particular, 
the mass of the people everywhere, face to face 
with the necessities of existence, knowing what 
it is to work and to struggle, to co-operate and 
to compete, to suffer and to relieve suffering, 
though they may be less well-informed than 
the instructed classes, are also less Uable to 
obsession by abstractions. They see little, but 
they see it straight. And though, being men, 
with the long animal inheritance of men behind 
them, their passions may be roused by any cry 
of battle, though they are the fore-ordained 
dupes of those who direct the policy of nations, 
yet it is not their initiative that originates wars. 



S6 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

They do not desire conquest, they do not trouble 
about "race" or chatter about the "survival 
of the fittest." It is their own needs, which are 
also the vital needs of society, that preoccupy 
their thoughts; and it is real goods that direct 
and inspire their genuine idealism. 

We must, then, disabuse ourselves of the 
notion so naturally produced by reading, and 
especially by reading in time of war, that the 
German Jingoes are typical of Germany. They 
are there, they are a force, they have to be reck- 
oned with. But exactly how great a force? 
Exactly how influential on policy? That is a 
question which I imagine can only be answered 
by guesses. Would the reader, for instance, 
undertake to estimate the influence during the 
last fifteen years on British policy and opinion 
of the imperialist minority in this country? 
No two men, I think, would agree about it. 
And few men would agree with themselves from 
one day or one week to another. We are re- 
duced to conjecture. But the conjectures of some 
people are of more value than those of others, for 
they are based on a wider converse. I think it 
therefore not without importance to recall to the 
reader the accounts of the state of opinion in Ger- 
many given by well-qualified foreign observers in 
the years immediately preceding the war. 



OPINION ABOUT GERMANY 57 

9. Opinion about Germany 

After the crisis of Agadir, M. Georges Bourdon 
visited Germany to make an inquiry for the 
Figaro newspaper into the state of opinion there. 
His mission belongs to the period between Agadir 
and the outbreak of the first Balkan war. He 
interviewed a large number of people, states- 
men, publicists, professors, politicians. He does 
not sum up his impressions, and such summary 
as I can give here is no doubt affected by the 
emphasis of my own mind. His book,^ how- 
ever, is now translated into EngHsh, and the 
reader has the opportunity of correcting the 
impression I give him. 

Let us begin with Pangermanism, on which 
M. Bourdon has a very interesting chapter. 
He feels for the propaganda of that sect the 
repulsion that must be felt by every sane and 
liberal-minded man : — 

Wretched, choleric Pangermans, exasperated and un- 
balanced, brothers of all the exasperated, wretched wind- 
bags whose tirades, in all countries, answer to yours, 
and whom you are wrong to count your enemies! Pan- 
germans of the Spree and the Main, who, on the other 
side of the frontier, receive the fraternal effusions of 
Russian Pan-Slavism, Italian irredentism, English im- 



1 « 



L'Enigme Allemande," 1914. 



58 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

perialism, French nationalism! What is it that you 
want? 

They want, he replies, part of Austria, Switzer- 
land, Flanders, Luxemburg, Denmark, Holland, 
for aU these are "Germanic" countries! They 
want colonies. They want a bigger army and 
a bigger navy. "An execrable race, these Pan- 
germans!" "They have the yellow skin, the 
dry mouth, the green complexion of the bilious. 
They do not live under the sky, they avoid the 
light. Hidden in their cellars, they pore over 
treaties, cite newspaper articles, grow pale over 
maps, measure angles, quibble over texts or 
traces of frontiers." "The Pangerman is a prop- 
agandist and a revivaUst." "But," M. Bour- 
don adds, "when he shouts we must not think 
we hear in his tones the reverberations of the 
German soul." The organs of the party seemed 
few and unimportant. The party itseK was 
spoken of with contempt. "They talk loud," 
M. Bourdon was told, "but have no real fol- 
lowing; it is only in France that people attend 
to them." Nevertheless, M. Bourdon concluded 
they were not negligible. For, in the first place, 
they have power to evoke the jingoism of the 
German public — a, jingoism which the violent 
patriotism of the people, their tradition of vic- 
torious force, their education, their dogma of 



OPINION ABOUT GERMANY 59 

race, continually keep alive. And, secondly, 
the Government, when it thinks it useful, turns 
to the Pangermans for assistance, and lets loose 
their propaganda in the press. Their influence 
thus waxes and wanes, as it is favoured, or not, 
by authority. "Like the giant Antaeus," a corre- 
spondent wrote to M. Bourdon, "Pangermanism 
loses its force when it quits the soil of govern- 
ment." 

It is interesting to note, however, that the 
Pangerman propaganda purports to be based 
upon fear. If they urge increased armaments, 
it is with a view to defence. "I considered it 
a patriotic duty," wrote General Keim, "in 
my quality of president of the German League 
for Defence, to demand an increase of effectives 
such that France should find it out of the ques- 
tion to dream of a victorious war against us, 
even with the help of other nations." "To the 
awakening of the national sentiment in France 
there is only one reply — the increase of the 
German forces." "I have the impression," 
said Count Reventlow, "that a warlike spirit 
which is new is developing in France. There 
is the danger." Thus in Germany, as else- 
where, even jingoism took the mask of necessary 
precaution. And so it must be, and will be 
everywhere, as long as the European anarchy 



6o THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

continues. For what nation has ever admitted 
an intention or desire to make aggressive war? 

M. Bourdon, then, takes full account of Pan- 
germanism. Nor does he neglect the general 
militaristic tendencies of German opinion. He 
found pride in the army, a determination to 
be strong, and that belief that it is in war that 
the State expresses itself at the highest and the 
best, which is part of the tradition of German 
education since the days of Treitschke. Yet, 
in spite of all this, to which M. Bourdon does 
fuU justice, the general impression made by 
the conversations he records is that the bulk 
of opinion in Germany was strongly pacific. 
There was apprehension indeed, apprehension 
of France and apprehension of England. "Eng- 
land certainly preoccupies opinion more than 
France. People are alarmed by her movements 
and her armaments." "The constant interven- 
tions of England have undoubtedly irritated 
the pubHc." Germany, therefore, must arm 
and arm again. "A great war may be delayed, 
but not prevented, unless German armaments 
are such as to put fear into the heart of every 
possible adversary." 

Germany feared that war might come, but 
she did not want it — that, in sum, was M. Bour- 
don's impression. From soldiers, statesmen, 



OPINION ABOUT GERMANY 6i 

professors, business men, again and again, the 
same assurance. "The sentiment you will find 
most generally held is undoubtedly that of peace." 
"Few think about war. We need peace too 
much." "War! War between us! What an 
idea! Why, it would mean a European war, 
something monstrous, something which would 
surpass in horror anything the world has ever 
seen! My dear sir, only madmen could desire 
or conceive such a calamity! It must be avoided 
at all costs." "What counts above all here 
is coromercial interest. AU who live by it are, 
here as elsewhere, almost too pacific." "Under 
the economic conditions prevailing in Germany, 
the most glorious victory she can aspire to — 
it is a soldier who says it — is peace!" 

The impression thus gathered from M. Bour- 
don's observations is confirmed at every point 
by those of Baron Beyens, who went to Berlin 
as Belgian minister after the crisis of Agadir.^ 
Of the world of business he says : — 

All these gentlemen appeared to be convinced parti- 
sans of peace. . . . According to them, the tranquillity 
of Europe had not been for a moment seriously menaced 
during the crisis of Agadir. . . . Industrial Germany 
required to live on good terms with France. Peace was 

^ See "L'Allemagne avant la guerre," pp. 97 seq. and 
170 seq. BruxeUes, 1915. 



62 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

necessary to business, and German finance in particular 
had every interest in the maintenance of its profitable 
relations with French finance.^ At the end of a few 
months I had the impression that these pacifists personified 
then — ^in 1912 — the most common, the most widely spread, 
though the least noisy, opinion, the opinion of the ma- 
jority, understanding by the majority, not that of the 
governing classes but that of the nation as a whole (p. 172). 

The mass of the people, Beyens held, loved 
peace, and dreaded war. That was the case, 
not only with all the common people, but also 
with the managers and owners of businesses 
and the wholesale and retail merchants. Even 
in BerUn society and among the ancient Ger- 
man nobiUty there were to be found sincere 
pacifists. On the other hand, there was cer- 
tainly a bellicose minority. It was composed 
largely of soldiers, both active and retired; the 
latter especially looking with envy and disgust 
on the increasing prosperity of the commercial 
classes, and holding that a "blood-letting would 
be wholesome to purge and regenerate the so- 

* A Frenchman, M. Maurice Ajam, who made an 
inquiry among business men in 19 13 came to the same 
conclusion. "Peace! I write that all the Germans with- 
out exception, when they belong to the world of business, 
are fanatical partisans of the maintenance of European 
peace." See Yves Guyot, "Les causes et les consequences 
de la guerre," p. 226. 



OPINION ABOUT GERMANY 63 

cial body" — a view not conJ5ned to Germany, 
and one which has received classical expression 
in Tennyson's "Maud." To this movement 
belonged also the high officials, the Conserva- 
tive parties, patriots and journalists, and of 
course the armament firms, dehberate fomen- 
ters of war in Germany, as everywhere else, 
in order to put money into their pockets. To 
these must be added the "intellectual flower 
of the universities and the schools." "The 
professors at the universities, taken en bloc, 
were one of the most violent elements in the 
nation." "Almost all the young people from 
one end of the Empire to the other have had 
brought before them in the course of their studies 
the dilemma which Bernhardi summed up to 
his readers in the three words 'world-power or 
decadence.' Yet with all this, the resolute parti- 
sans of war formed as I thought a very small 
minority in the nation. That is the impres- 
sion I obstinately retain of my sojourn in Ber- 
lin and my excursions into the provinces of 
the Empire, rich or poor. When I recall the 
image of this peaceful population, journe5dng 
to business every week-day with a movement 
so regular, or seated at table on Sundays in 
the cafes in the open air before a glass of beer, 
I can find in my memories nothing but placid 



64 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

faces where there was no trace of violent pas- 
sions, no thought hostile to foreigners, not even 
that feverish concern with the struggle for exist- 
ence which the spectacle of the human crowd has 
sometimes shown me elsewhere." 

A similar impression is given by the dispatch 
from M. Cambon, French Ambassador to Berlin, 
written on July 30, 1913.^ He, too, finds ele- 
ments working for war, and analyses them much 
as Baron Beyens does. There are first the "jun- 
kers," or country squires, naturally military by 
all their traditions, but also afraid of the death- 
duties "which are bound to come if peace con- 
tinues." Secondly, the "higher bourgeoisie" — 
that is, the great manufacturers and financiers, 
and, of course, in particular the armament firms. 
Both these social classes are influenced, not only 
by direct pecuniary motives but by the fear of 
the rising democracy, which is beginning to 
swamp their representatives in the Reichstag. 
Thirdly, the officials, the "party of the pen- 
sioned." Fourthly, the imiversities, the "his- 
torians, philosophers, pohtical pamphleteers, and 
other apologists of German Kultur." Fifthly, 
rancorous diplomatists, with a sense that they 
had been duped. On the other hand, there were, 
as M. Cambon insists, other forces in the country 

^ See French Yellow Book, No. 5. 



OPINION ABOUT GERMANY 65 

making for peace. What were these? In numbers 
the great bulk, in Germany as in all countries. 
"The mass of the workmen, artisans and peas- 
ants, who are peace-loving by instinct." Such 
of the great nobles as were intelligent enough 
to recognize the "disastrous political and social 
consequences of war." "Numerous manufac- 
turers, merchants, and financiers in a moderate 
way of business." The non-German elements 
of the Empire. Finally, the Government and 
the governing classes in the large southern States. 
A goodly array of peace forces! According to 
M. Cambon, however, all these latter elements 
"are only a sort of make-weight in political mat- 
ters with limited influence on public opinion, or 
they are silent social forces, passive and defence- 
less against the infection of a wave of warlike 
feeling." This last sentence is pregnant. It 
describes the state of affairs existing, more or 
less, in all countries; a few individuals, a few 
groups or cliques, making for war more or less 
deliberately; the mass of the people ignorant 
and unconcerned, but also defenceless against 
suggestion, and ready to respond to the call to 
war, with submission or with enthusiasm, as 
soon as the call is made by their Govern- 
ment. 
On the testimony, then, of these witnesses, 



66 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

all shrewd and competent observers, it may be 
permitted to sum up somewhat as follows: — 

In the years immediately preceding the war 
the mass of the people in Germany, rich and 
poor, were attached to peace and dreaded war. 
But there was there also a powerful minority 
either desiring war or expecting it, and, in either 
case, preparing it by their agitation. And this 
minority could appeal to the peculiarly aggres- 
sive form of patriotism inculcated by the public 
schools and universities. The war party based 
its appeal for ever fresh armaments on the hostile 
preparations of the Powers of the Entente. Its 
aggressive ambition masqueraded, perhaps even 
to itself, as a patriotism apprehensively concerned 
with defence. It was supported by powerful 
moneyed interests; and the mass of the people, 
passive, ill-informed, preoccupied, were defence- 
less against its agitation. The German Govern- 
ment found the Pangermans embarrassing or 
convenient according as the direction of its policy 
and the European situation changed from crisis 
to crisis. They were thus at one moment neg- 
ligible, at another powerful. For long they agi- 
tated vainly, and they might long have continued 
to do so. But if the moment should come at 
which the Government should make the fatal 
plunge, their efforts would have contributed to 



GERMANY FROM 1890-1900 67 

the result, their warnings would seem to have 
been justified, and they would triumph as the 
party of patriots that had foretold in vain the 
coming crash to an unbeheving nation. 

10. German Policy from 1890-1900 

Having thus examined the atmosphere of 
opinion in which the German Government moved, 
let us proceed to consider the actual course of 
their policy during the critical years, fifteen or 
so, that preceded the war. The policy admit- 
tedly and openly was one of "expansion." But 
"expansion" where? It seems to be rather 
widely supposed that Germany was preparing 
war in order to annex territory in Europe. 
The contempt of German imperialists, from 
Treitschke onward, for the rights of small States, 
the racial theories which included in "German" 
territory Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and 
the Scandinavian countries, may seem to give 
colour to this idea. But it would be hazardous 
to assume that German statesmen were seriously 
influenced for years by the lucubrations of Mr. 
Houston Stewart Chamberlain and his followers. 
Nor can a long-prepared policy of annexation in 
Europe be inferred from the fact that Belgium 
and France were invaded after the war broke 



68 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

out, or even from the present demand among 
German parties that the territories occupied 
should be retained. If it could be maintained 
that the seizure of territory during war^ or even 
its retention after it, is evidence that the territory 
was the object of the war, it would be legitimate 
also to infer that the British Empire has gone 
to war to annex Germ^an colonies, a conclusion 
which Englishmen would probably reject with 
indignation. In truth, before the war, the view 
that it was the object of German policy to annex 
European territory would have found, I think, 
few, if any, supporters among well-informed and 
unprejudiced observers. I note, for instance, 
that Mr. Dawson, whose opinion on such a point 
is probably better worth having than that of 
any other Enghshman, in his book, "The Evo- 
lution of Modern Germany,"^ when discussing 
the aims of German policy does not even refer 
to the idea that annexations in Europe are con- 
templated. 

So far as the evidence at present goes, I do 
not think a case can be made out for the view 
that German policy was aiming during these 
years at securing the hegemony of Europe by 
annexing European territory. The expansion 
Germany was seeking was that of trade and 
^ Published in 1908. 



GERMANY FROM 1890-1900 69 

markets. And her statesmen and people, like 
those of other countries, were under the belief 
that, to secure this, it was necessary to acquire 
colonies. This ambition, up to a point, she was 
able, in fact, to fulfil, not by force but by agree- 
ment with the other Powers The Berlin Act 
of 1885 was one of the wisest and most far-seeing 
achievements of European policy. By it the 
partition of a great part of the African continent 
between the Powers was peaceably accomplished, 
and Germany emerged with possessions to the 
extent of 377,000 square miles and an estimated 
population of 1,700,000. By 1906 her colonial 
domain had been increased to over two and a 
half million square miles, and its population 
to over twelve millions; and all of this had been 
acquired without- war with any civilized nation. 
In spite of her late arrival on the scene as a co- 
lonial Power, Germany had thus secured with- 
out war an empire overseas, not comparable, 
indeed, to that of Great Britain or of France, 
but still considerable in extent and (as Germans 
believed) in economic promise, and sujB&cient 
to give them the opportunity they desired to 
show their capacity as pioneers of civilization. 
How they have succeeded or failed in this we 
need not here consider. But when Germans 
demand a "place in the sun," the considerable 



70 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

place they have in fact acquired, with the ac- 
quiescence of the other colonial Powers, should, 
in fairness to those Powers, be remembered. 
But, notoriously, they were not satisfied, and 
the extent of their dissatisfaction was shown 
by their determination to create a navy. This 
new departure, dating from the close of the dec- 
ade 1 890-1 900, marks the beginning of that 
friction between Great Britain and Germany 
which was a main cause of the war. It is there- 
fore important to form some just idea of the 
motives that inspired German policy to take 
this momentous step. The reasons given by 
Prince Biilow, the founder of the policy, and 
often repeated by German statesmen and pub- 
licists,^ are, first, the need of a strong navy to 
protect German commerce; secondly, the need, 
as well as the ambition, of Germany to play a 
part proportional to her real strength in the 
determination of policy beyond the seas. These 
reasons, according to the ideas that govern Euro- 
pean statesmanship, are valid and sufficient. 
They are the same that have influenced all great 
Powers; and if Germany was influenced by them 
we need not infer any specially sinister intentions 
on her part. The fact that during the present 

^ See, e. g., Dawson, "Evolution of Modern Germany," 
p. 348. 



GERMANY FROM 1890-1900 71 

war German trade has been swept from the seas, 
and that she is in the position of a blockaded 
Power, will certainly convince any German pa- 
triot, not that she did not need a navy, but that 
she needed a much stronger one; and the retort 
that there need have been no war if Germany 
had not provoked it by building a fleet is not 
one that can be expected to appeal to any nation 
so long as the European anarchy endures. For, 
of course, every nation regards itself as menaced 
perpetually by aggression from some other Power. 
Defence was certainly a legitimate motive for 
the building of the fleet, even if there had been 
no other. There was, however, in fact, another 
reason avowed. Germany, as we have said, de- 
sired to have a voice in policy beyond the seas. 
Here, too, the reason is good, as reasons go in 
a world of competing States. A great manu- 
facturing and trading Power cannot be indiffer- 
ent to the parcelling out of the world among 
its rivals. Wherever, in countries economically 
undeveloped, there were projects of protectorates 
or armexations, or of any kind of monopoly to 
be established in the interest of any Power, there 
German interests were directly affected. She 
had to speak, and to speak with a loud voice, 
if she was to be attended to. And a loud voice 
meant a navy. So, at least, the matter natu- 



72 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

rally presented itself to German imperialists, as, 
indeed, it would to imperialists of any other 
country. 

The reasons given by German statesmen for 
building their fleet were in this sense valid. But 
were they the only reasons? In the beginning 
most probably they were. But the formation 
and strengthening of the Entente, and Germany's 
consequent fear that war might be made upon 
her jointly by France and Great Britain, gave 
a new stimulus to her naval ambition. She could 
not now be content with a navy only as big as 
that of France, for she might have to meet those 
of France and England conjoined. This defen- 
sive reason is good. But no doubt, as always, 
there must have lurked behind it ideas of ag- 
gression. Ambition, in the philosophy of States, 
goes hand in hand with fear. "The war may 
come," says one party. "Yes," says the other; 
and secretly mutters, "May the war come!" 
To ask whether armaments are for offence or 
for defence must always be an idle inquiry. They 
will be for either, or both, according to circum- 
stances, according to the personalities that are 
in power, according to the mood that politicians 
and journalists, and the interests that suborn 
them, have been able to infuse into a nation. 
But what may be said with clear conviction is. 



GERMANY FROM 1890-1900 73 

that to attempt to account for the clash of war 
by the ambition and armaments of a single Power 
is to think far too simply of how these catas- 
trophes originate. The truth, in this case, is 
that German ambition developed in relation to 
the whole European situation, and that, just as 
on land their policy was conditioned by their 
relation to France and Russia, so at sea it was 
conditioned by their relation to Great Britain. 
They knew that their determination to become 
a great Power at sea would arouse the suspicion 
and alarm of the English. Prince Biilow is per- 
fectly frank about that. He says that the difificulty. 
was to get on with the shipbuilding programme 
without giving Great Britain an opportunity 
to intervene by force and nip the enterprise in 
the bud. He attributes here to the British Govern- 
ment a policy which is all in the Bismarckian 
tradition. It was, in fact, a policy urged by 
some voices here, voices which, as is always the 
case, were carried to Germany and magnified 
by the megaphone of the Press. ^ That no British 
Government, in fact, contemplated picking a 
quarrel with Germany in order to prevent her 
becoming a naval Power I am myself as much 
convinced as any other Englishman, and I count 

^ Some of these are cited in Billow's "Imperial Ger- 
many," p. 36. 



74 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

the fact as righteousness to our statesmen. On 
the other hand, I think it an unfounded con- 
jecture that Prince Billow was dehberately build- 
ing with a view to attacking the British Empire. 
I see no reason to doubt his sincerity when he 
says that he looked forward to a peaceful solu- 
tion of the rivalry between Germany and our- 
selves, and that France, in his view, not Great 
Britain, was the irreconcilable enemy. ^ In build- 
ing her navy, no doubt, Germany deliberately 
took the risk of incurring a quarrel with England 
in the pursuit of a policy which she regarded as 
essential to her development. It is quite another 
thing, and would require much evidence to prove 
that she was working up to a war with the ob- 
ject of destroying the British Empire. 

What we have to bear in mind, in estimating 
the meaning of the German naval policy, is a 
complex series of motives and conditions: the 
genuine need of a navy, and a strong one, to pro- 
tect trade in the event of war, and to secure a 
voice in overseas policy; the genuine fear of an 
attack by the Powers of the Entente, an attack 
to be provoked by British jealousy; and also 
that indeterminate ambition of any great Power 
which may be influencing the policy of statesmen 

^ See "Imperial Germany," pp. 48, 71, English transla- 
tion. 



ATTEMPTS AT HARMONY 75 

even while they have not avowed it to themselves, 
and which, expressed by men less responsible 
and less discreet, becomes part of that "public 
opinion" of which policy takes account. 

II. Vain Attempts at Harmony 

It may, however, be reasonably urged that 
unless the Germans had had aggressive am- 
bitions they would have agreed to some of the 
many proposals made by Great Britain to ar- 
rest on both sides the constantly expanding 
programmes of naval constructions. It is true 
that Germany has always opposed the policy 
of limiting armaments, whether on land or sea. 
This is consonant with that whole militarist 
view of international politics which, as I have 
already indicated, is held in a more extreme 
and violent form in Germany than in any other 
country, but which is the creed of jingoes and 
imperialists everywhere. If the British Govern- 
ment had succeeded in coming to an agree- 
ment with Germany on this question they would 
have been bitterly assailed by that party at 
home. Still, the Government did make the 
attempt. It was comparatively easy for them, 
for any basis to which they could have agreed 
must have left intact, legitimately and neces- 



76 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

sarily, as we all agree, the British supremacy 
at sea. The Germans would not assent to this. 
They did not choose to limit beforehand their 
efforts to rival us at sea. Probably they did 
not think it possible to equal, still less to out- 
strip us. But they wanted to do all they could. 
And that of course could have only one mean- 
ing. They thought a war with England pos- 
sible, and they wanted to be as well prepared 
as they could be. It is part of the irony that 
attaches to the whole system of the armed peace 
that the preparations made against war are 
themselves the principal cause of war. For 
if there had been no rival shipbuilding, there 
need have been no friction between the two 
countries. 

"But why did Germany fear war? It must 
have been because she meant to make it." So 
the English argue. But imagine the Germans 
saying to us, "Why do you fear war? There 
will be no war unless you provoke it. We are 
quite pacific. You need not be alarmed about 
us." Would such a promise have induced us 
to relax our preparations for a moment? No! 
Under the armed peace there can be no con- 
fidence. And that aldne is sufficient to account 
for the breakdown of the Anglo-German negotia- 
tions, without supposing on either side a wish or 



ATTEMPTS AT HARMONY 77 

an intention to make war. Each suspected, and 
was bound to suspect, the purpose of the other. 
Let us take, for example, the negotiations of 
191 2, and put them back in their setting. 

The Triple Alliance was confronting the Triple 
Entente. On both sides were fear and sus- 
picion. Each believed in the possibiKty of the 
others springing a war upon them. Each sus- 
pected the others of wanting to lull them into 
a false security, and then take them unpre- 
pared. In that atmosphere, what hope was 
there of successful negotiations? The essen- 
tial condition — ^mutual confidence — ^was lacking. 
What, accordingly, do we find? The Germans 
offer to reduce their naval programme, first, 
if England will promise an unconditional neu- 
trality; secondly, when that was rejected, if 
England will promise neutrality in a war which 
should be "forced upon" Germany. There- 
upon the British Foreign Office scents a snare. 
Germany will get Austria to provoke a war, 
while making it appear that the war was pro- 
voked by Russia, and she will then come in 
under the terms of her alliance with Austria, 
smash France, and claim that England must 
look on passively under the neutrality agree- 
ment! "No, thank you!" Sir Edward Grey, 
accordingly, makes a counter-proposal. Eng- 



78 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

land will neither make nor participate in an 
"unprovoked" attack upon Germany. This 
time it is the German Chancellor's turn to hang 
back. "Unprovoked! Hm! What does that 
mean? Russia, let us suppose, makes war upon 
Austria, while making it appear that Austria 
is the aggressor. France comes in on the side 
of Russia. And England? Will she admit that 
the war was 'unprovoked' and remain neutral? 
Hardly, we think!" The Chancellor there- 
upon proposes the addition: "England, of course, 
will remain neutral if war is forced upon Ger- 
many? That follows, I presume?" "No!" 
from the British Foreign Office. Reason as 
before. And the negotiations fall through. How 
should they not under the conditions? There 
could be no understanding, because there was 
no confidence. There could be no confidence 
because there was mutual fear. There was 
mutual fear because the Triple Alliance stood 
in arms against the Triple Entente. What was 
wrong? Germany? England? No. The Eu- 
ropean tradition and system. 

The fact, then, that those negotiations broke 
down is no more evidence of sinister intentions 
on the part of Germany than it is on the part 
of Great Britain. Baron Beyens, to my mind 
the most competent and the most impartial, 



ATTEMPTS AT HARMONY 79 

as well as one of the best-informed, of those 
who have written on the events leading up to 
the war, says explicitly of the policy of the Ger- 
man Chancellor: — 

A practicable rapprochement between his country and 
Great Britain was the dream with which M. de Bethmann- 
Hollweg most wiUingly soothed himself, without the 
treacherous arriere-pensee which the Prince von Biilow 
perhaps would have had of finishing later on, at an oppor- 
tune moment, with the British Navy. Nothing authorizes 
us to believe that there was not a basis of sincerity in the 
language of M. de Jagow when he expressed to Sir E. 
Goschen in the course of their last painful interview his 
poignant regret at the crumbling of his entire policy and 
that of the Chancellor, which had been to make friends 
with Great Britain, and then through Great Britain to 
get closer to France.^ 

Meantime the considerations I have here 
laid before the reader, in relation to this general 
question of Anglo-German rivalry, are, I sub- 
mit, all relevant, and must be taken into fair 
consideration in forming a judgment. The facts 
show clearly that Germany was challenging 
as well as she could the British supremacy at 
sea; that she was determined to become a naval 
as well as a military Power; and that her policy 
was, on the face of it, a menace to this country; 

^ "L'Allemagne avant la guerre," p. 75, and British 
White Paper, No. 160. 



8o THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

just as the creation on our part of a great con- 
script army would have been taken by Ger- 
many as a menace to her. The British Govern- 
ment was bound to make counter-preparations. 
T, for my own part, have never disputed it. I 
have never thought, and do not now think, that 
while the European anarchy continues, a single 
Power can disarm in the face of the others. All 
this is beyond dispute. What is disputable, 
and a matter of speculative inference, is the 
further assumption that in pursuing this poHcy 
Germany was making a bid to destroy the Brit- 
ish Empire. The facts can certainly be ac- 
counted for without that assumption. I my- 
self think the assumption highly improbable. 
So much I may say, but I cannot say more. 
Possibly some day we may be able to check 
conjecture by facts. Until then, argument must 
be inconclusive. 

This question of the naval rivalry between 
Germany and Great Britain is, however, part 
of the general question of miHtarism. And it 
may be urged that while during the last fifteen 
years the British Government has shown itself 
favourable to projects of arbitration and of 
limitation of armaments, the German Govern- 
ment has consistently opposed them. There 
is much truth in this; and it is a good illustra- 



ATTEMPTS AT HARMONY 8i 

tion of what I hold to be indisputable, that the 
militaristic view of international politics is much 
more deeply rooted in Germany than in Great 
Britain, It is worth while, however, to remind 
ourselves a little in detail what the facts were since 
they are often misrepresented or exaggerated. 

The question of international arbitration was 
brought forward at the first Hague Conference 
in 1899.^ From the beginning it was recognized 
on all sides that it would be idle to propose gen- 
eral compulsory arbitration for all subjects. 
No Power would have agreed to it, not Great 
Britain or America any more than Germany. 
On the other hand, projects for creating an ar- 
bitration tribunal, to which nations willing to 
use it should have recourse, were brought for- 
ward by both the British and the American 
representatives. From the beginning, however, 
it became clear that Count Miinster, the head 
of the German delegation, was opposed to any 
scheme for encouraging arbitration. "He did 
not say that he would oppose a moderate plan 
of voluntary arbitration, but he insisted that 
arbitration must be injurious to Germany; that 

^The account that follows is taken from the "Auto- 
biography" of Andrew D. White, the chairman of the 
American delegation. See vol. ii., chap. xlv. and follow- 
ing. 



82 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

Germany is prepared for war as no other coun- 
try is, or can be; that she can mobilize her army 
in ten days; and that neither France, Russia, 
nor any other Power can do this. Arbitration, 
he said, would simply give rival Powers time 
to put themselves in readiness, and would, there- 
fore, be a great disadvantage to Germany." 
Here is what I should call the militarist view 
in all its simpHcity and purity, the obstinate, 
unquestioning belief that war is inevitable, and 
the determination to be ready for it at aU costs, 
even at the cost of rejecting machinery which 
if adopted might obviate war. The passage 
has often been cited as evidence of the German 
determination to have war. But I have not 
so often seen quoted the exactly parallel declara- 
tion made by Sir John (now Lord) Fisher. "He 
said that the Navy of Great Britain was and 
would remain in a state of complete preparation 
for war; that a vast deal depended on prompt 
action by the Navy; and that the truce afforded 
by arbitration proceedings would give other 
Powers time, which they would not otherwise 
have, to put themselves into complete readi- 
ness." ^ So far the "miUtarist" and the "marin- 

^ Mr. Arthur Lee, late Civil Lord of the Admiralty, 
at Eastleigh: — 
"If war should unhappily break out under existing 



ATTEMPTS AT HARMONY 83 

ist" adopt exactly the same view. And we may 
be sure that if proposals are made after the war 
to strengthen the machinery for international 
arbitration, there will be opposition in this coun- 
try of the same kind, and based on the same 
grounds, as the opposition in Germany. We 
cannot on this point condemn Count Miinster 
without also condemning Lord Fisher. 

Miinster's opposition, however, was only the 
beginning. As the days went on it became clear 
that the Kaiser himseh had become actively 
opposed to the whole idea of arbitration, and 
was influencing Austria and Italy and Turkey 
in that sense. The delegates of all the other 
countries were in favour of the very mild ap- 
phcation of it which was under consideration. 
So, however, be it noted, were all the delegates 
from Germany, except Count Miinster. And 
even he was, by now, so far converted that when 
orders were received from Germany definitely to 
refuse co-operation, he postponed the critical 

conditions the British Navy would get its blow in first, 
before the other nation had time even to read in the papers 
that war had been declared" {The Times, February 4, 

1905). 

"The British fleet is now prepared strategically for 
every possible emergency, for we must assume that all 
foreign naval Powers are possible enemies" {The Times j 
February 7, 1905). 



84 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

sitting of the committee, and dispatched Pro- 
fessor Zom to Berhn to lay the whole matter 
before the Chancellor. Professor Zom was ac- 
companied by the American Dr. Holls, bearing 
an urgent private letter to Prince Hohenlohe 
from Mr. White. The result was that the Ger- 
man attitude was changed, and the arbitration 
tribunal was finally estabhshed with the con- 
sent and co-operation of the German Govern- 
ment. 

I have thought it worth while to dwell thus 
fully upon this episode because it illustrates 
how misleading it really is to talk of "Germany" 
and the "German" attitude. There is every 
kind of German attitude. The Kaiser is an un- 
stable and changeable character. His ministers 
do not necessarily agree with him, and he does 
not always get his way. As a consequence of 
discussion and persuasion the German opposi- 
tion, on this occasion, was overcome. There 
was nothing, in fact, fixed and final about it. 
It was the militarist prejudice, and the preju- 
dice this time yielded to humanity and reason. 

The subject was taken up again in the Con- 
ference of 1907, and once more Germany was 
in opposition. The German delegate. Baron 
Marschall von Bieberstein, while he was not 
against compulsory arbitration for certain se- 



ATTEMPTS AT HARMONY 85 

lected topics, was opposed to any general treaty. 
It seems clear that it was this attitude of Ger- 
many that prevented any advance being made 
beyond the Convention of 1899. Good reasons, 
of course, could be given for this attitude; but 
they are the kind of reasons that goodwill could 
have surmounted. It seems clear that there 
was goodwill in other Governments, but not 
in that of Germany, and the latter Hes legiti- 
mately under the prejudice resulting from the 
position she then took. German critics have 
recognized this as freely as critics of other coun- 
tries. I myself feel no desire to minimize the 
blame that attaches to Germany. But English- 
men who criticize her policy must always ask 
themselves whether they would support a Brit- 
ish Government that should stand for a general 
treaty of compulsory arbitration. 

On the question of Umitation of armaments 
the German Goverimient has been equally in- 
transigeant. At the Conference of 1899, in- 
deed, no serious effort was made by any Power 
to achieve the avowed purpose of the meeting. 
And, clearly, if anything was intended to be 
done, the wrong direction was taken from the 
beginning. When the second Conference was 
to meet it is understood that the German Gov- 
erimient refused participation if the question of 



86 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

armaments was to be discussed, and the subject 
did not appear on the official programme. Never- 
theless the British, French, and American dele- 
gates took occasion to express a strong sense 
of the burden of armaments, and the urgent 
need of lessening it. 

The records of the Hague Conferences do, 
then, clearly show that the German Govern- 
ment was more obstinately sceptical of any ad- 
vance in the direction of international arbi- 
tration or disarmament than that of any other 
Great Power, and especially of Great Britain 
or the United States. Whether, in fact, much 
could or would have been done, even in the ab- 
sence of German opposition, may be doubted. 
There would certainly have been, in every coun- 
try, very strong opposition to any effective meas- 
ures, and it is only those who would be willing 
to see their own Government make a radical 
advance in the directions in question who can 
honestly attack the German Government. As 
one of those who believe that peaceable pro- 
cedure may and can, and, if civilization is to 
be preserved, must be substituted for war, I 
have a right to express my own condemnation 
of the German Government, and I unhesitat- 
ingly do so. But I do not infer that therefore 
Germany was all the time working up to an 



ATTEMPTS AT HARMONY 87 

aggressive war. It is interesting, in this con- 
nection, to note the testimony given by Sir Edwin 
Pears to the desire for good relations between 
Great Britain and Germany felt and expressed 
later by the same Baron Marschall von Bieber- 
stein who was so unyielding in 1907 on the ques- 
tion of arbitration. When he came to take up 
the post of German Ambassador to Great Britain, 
Sir Edwin reports him as saying: — 

I have long wanted to be Ambassador to England, 
because, as you know, for years I have considered it a 
misfortune to the world that our two countries are not 
really in harmony. I consider that I am here as a man 
with a mission, my mission being to bring about a real 
understanding between our two nations. 

On this Sir Edwin comments (191 5): — 

I unhesitatingly add that I am convinced he was sincere 
in what he said. Of that I have no doubt.^ 

It must, in fact, be recognized that in the 
present state of international relations, the gen- 
eral suspicion and the imminent danger, it re- 
quires more imagination and faith than most 
public men possess, and more idealism than most 
nations have shown themselves to be capable of, 

^Sir Edwin Pears, "Forty Years in Constantinople," 
p. 330. 



8S THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

to take any radical step towards reorganization. 
The armed peace, as we have so often had to 
insist, perpetuates itself by the mistrust which 
it establishes. 

Every move by one Power is taken to be a 
menace to another, and is countered by a sim- 
ilar move, which in turn produces a reply. And 
it is not easy to say "Who began it?" since the 
rivalry goes so far back into the past. What, 
for instance, is the real truth about the German, 
French, and Russian military laws of 19 13? Were 
any or all of them aggressive? Or were they 
all defensive? I do not beheve it is possible to 
answer that question. Looking back from the 
point of view of 19 14, it is natural to suppose 
that Germany was already intending war. But 
that did not seem evident at the time to a neutral 
observer, nor even, it would seem, to the British 
Foreign Office. Thus the Count de Lalaing, 
Belgian Minister in London, writes as follows 
on February 24, 1913: — 

The English Press naturally wants to throw upon 
Germany the responsibility for the new tension which 
results from its proposals, and which may bring to Europe 
fresh occasions of unrest. Many journals consider that 
the French Government, in declaring itself ready to 
impose three years' service, and in nominating M. Delcasse 
to St. Petersburg, has adopted the only attitude worthy 



ATTEMPTS AT HARMONY 89 

of the great Republic in presence of a German provoca- 
tion. At the Foreign Office I found a more just and calm 
appreciation of the position. They see in the reinforce- 
ment of the German armies less a provocation than the 
admission of a military situation weakened by events 
and which it is necessary to strengthen. The Government 
of Berlin sees itself obliged to recognize that it cannot 
count, as before, on the support of all the forces of its 
Austrian ally, since the appearance in South-east Europe 
of a new Power, that of the Balkan allies, established on 
the very flank of the Dual Empire. Far from being able 
to count, in case of need, on the full support of the Gov- 
ernment of Vienna, it is probable that Germany will have 
to support Vienna herseK. In the case of a European 
war she would have to make head against her enemies on 
two frontiers, the Russian and the French, and diminish 
perhaps her own forces to aid the Austrian army. In 
these conditions they do not find it surprising that the 
German Empire should have felt it necessary to increase 
the number of its Army Corps. They add at the Foreign 
Office that the Government of Berhn had frankly ex- 
plained to the Cabinet of Paris the precise motives of its 
action. 



Whether this is a complete account of the mo- 
tives of the German Government in introducing 
the law of 1913 cannot be definitely established. 
But the motives suggested are adequate by them- 
selves to account for the facts. On the other 
hand, a part of the cost of the new law was to 
be defrayed by a tax on capital. And those 



Qo THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

who believe that by this year Germany was def- 
initely waiting an occasion to make war have a 
right to dwell upon that fact. I find, myself, 
nothing conclusive in these speculations. But 
what is certain, and to my mind much more 
important, is the fact that military preparations 
evoke counter-preparations, until at last the 
strain becomes unbearable. By 1913 it was al- 
ready terrific. The Germans knew well that by 
January, 191 7, the French and Russian prepara- 
tions would have reached their culminating point. 
But those preparations were themselves almost 
unendurable to the French. 

I may recall here the passage already cited 
from a dispatch of Baron Guillaume, Belgian 
Ambassador at Paris, written in June, 19 14 
(p. 34). He suspected, as we saw, that the 
hand of Russia had imposed the three years' 
service upon France. 

What Baron Guillaume thought plausible must 
not the Germans have thought plausible? Must 
it not have confirmed their belief in the "inevi- 
tabihty" of a war — that belief which, by itself, 
has been enough to produce war after war, and, 
in particular, the war of 1870? Must there not 
have been strengthened in their minds that par- 
ticular current among the many that were mak- 
ing for war? And must not similar suspicions 



EUROPE SINCE 1890-1900 91 

have been active, with similar results, on the 
side of France and Russia? The armaments 
engender fear, the fear in turn engenders arma- 
ments, and in that vicious circle turns the policy 
of Europe, till this or that Power precipitates 
the conflict, much as a man hanging in terror 
over the edge of a cliff ends by losing his 
nerve and throwing himself over. That is 
the real lesson of the rivalry in armaments. 
That is certain. The rest remains conjec- 
ture. 

12. Europe since the Decade 1 890-1 900 

Let us now, endeavouring to bear in our minds 
the whole situation we have been analysing, con- 
sider a Httle more particularly the various epi- 
sodes and crises of international poHcy from the 
year 1890 onwards. I take that date, the date 
of Bismarck's resignation, for the reason already 
given (p. 42). It was not imtU then that it would 
have occurred to any competent observer to ac- 
cuse Germany of an aggressive poHcy calculated 
to disturb the peace of Europe. A closer rap- 
prochement with England was, indeed, the first 
idea of the Kaiser when he took over the reins of 
power in 1888. And during the ten years that 
followed British sympathies were actually drawn 



92 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

towards Germany and alienated from France.^ 
It is well known that Mr. Chamberlain favoured 

^ The columns of The Times for 1899 are full of attacks 
upon France. Once more we may cite from the dispatch 
of the Comte de Lalaing, Belgian Minister in London, 
dated May 24, 1907, commenting on current or recalhng 
earher events: "A certain section of the Press, known here 
under the name of the Yellow Press, is in great part re- 
sponsible for the hostility that exists between the two 
nations (England and Germany). What, in fact, can one 
expect from a joumaHst like Mr. Harmsworth, now 
Lord Northcliffe, proprietor of the Daily Mail, Daily 
Mirror, Daily Graphic, Daily Express, Evening News, 
and Weekly Dispatch, who in an interview given to the 
Matin says, 'Yes, we detest the Germans cordially. They 
make themselves odious to all Europe. I will never allow 
the least thing to be printed in my journal which might 
wound France, but I would not let anything be printed 
which might be agreeable to Germany.' Yet, in 1899, 
this same man was attacking the French with the same 
violence, wanted to boycott the Paris Exhibition, and 
wrote: 'The French have succeeded in persrading John 
Bull that they are his deadly enemies. Ei_gland long 
hesitated between France and Germany, but she has al- 
ways respected the German character, while she has 
come to despise France, A cordial understanding cannot 
exist between England and her nearest neighbour. We 
have had enough of France, who has neither courage nor 
political sense.'" Lalaing does not give his references, 
and I cannot therefore verify his quotations. But they 
hardly require it. The volteface of The Times is sufficiently 
well known. And only too well known is the way in 



EUROPE SINCE 1890-1900 93 

an alliance with Germany/ and that when the 
Anglo- Japanese treaty was being negotiated the 
inclusion of Germany was seriously considered 
by Lord Lansdowne. The telegram of the Kaiser 
to Kruger in 1895 no doubt left an unpleasant 
impression in England, and German feeling, of 
course, at the time of the Boer War, ran strongly 
against England, but so did feeling in France 
and America, and, indeed, throughout the civ- 
ilized world. It was certainly the determination 
of Germany to build a great navy that led to 
the tension between her and England, and fi- 
nally to the formation of the Triple Entente, as 

which the British nation allows its sentiments for other 
nations to be dictated to it by a handful of cantankerous 
journalists. 

^ "I may point out to you that, at bottom, the char- 
ax:ter, the main character, of the Teuton race differs 
very slightly indeed from the character of the Anglo- 
Saxon {cheers), and the same sentiments which bring 
us into a close sympathy with the United States of America 
may be invoked to bring us into closer sympathy with 
the Empire of Germany." He goes on to advocate "a 
new Triple Alliance between the Teutonic race and the 
two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race" (see The 
Times, December i, 1899). This was at the beginning 
of the Boer War, Two years later, in October, 1901, 
Mr. Chamberlain was attacking Germany at Edinburgh. 
This date is clearly about the turning-point in British 
sentiment and poHcy towards Germany. 



94 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

a counterpoise to the Triple Alliance. It is 1900, 
not 1888, still less 1870, that marks the period 
at which German policy began to be a disturbing 
element in Europe. During the years that fol- 
lowed, the principal storm-centres in international 
policy were the Far and Near East, the Balkans, 
and Morocco. Events in the Far East, important 
though they were, need not detain us here, for 
their contribution to the present war was remote 
and indirect, except so far as concerns the par- 
ticipation of Japan. Of the situation in the other 
areas, the tension and its causes and effects, we 
must try to form some clear general idea. This 
can be done even in the absence of that detailed 
information of what was going on behind the 
scenes for which a historian will have to wait. 

13. Germany ^nd Turkey 

Let us begin with the Near East. The situa- 
tion there, when Germany began her enterprise, 
is thus summed up by a French writer^: — 

Astride across Europe and Asia, the Ottoman Empire 
represented, for all the nations of the old continent, 
the cosmopolitan centre where each had erected, by 
dint of patience and ingenuity, a fortress of interests, 
influences, and special rights. Each fortress watched 

^ Pierre Albin, "D'Agadir a Serajevo," p. 81. 



GERMANY AND TURKEY 95 

jealously to maintain its particular advantages in face 
of the rival enemy. If one of them obtained a conces- 
sion, or a new favour, immediately the commanders 
of the others were seen issuing from their walls to claim 
from the Grand Turk concessions or favours which should 
maintain the existing balance of power or prestige. . . . 
France acted as protector of the Christians; England, 
the vigilant guardian of the routes to India, maintained 
a privileged political and economic position; Austria- 
Hungary mounted guard over the route to Salonica; 
Russia, protecting the Armenians and Slavs of the South 
of Europe, watched over the fate of the Orthodox. There 
was a general understanding among them all, tacit or 
express, that none should better its situation at the ex- 
pense of the others. 

When into this precariously balanced system 
of conflicting interests Germany began to throw 
her weight, the necessary result was a disturbance 
of equilibrium. As early as 1839 German ambi- 
tion had been directed towards this region by 
Von Moltke; but it was not till 1873 that the 
process of "penetration" began. In that year 
the enterprise of the Anatolian railway was 
launched by German financiers. In the succeed- 
ing years it extended itself as far as Konia; and 
in 1899 and 1902 concessions were obtained for 
an extension to Bagdad and the Persian Gulf. 
It was at this point that the question became 
one of international politics. Nothing could 



96 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

better illustrate the lamentable character of the 
European anarchy than the treatment of this 
matter by the interests and the Powers affected. 
Here had been launched on a grandiose scale 
a great enterprise of civihzation. The Mesopo- 
tamian plain, the cradle of civilization, and for 
centuries the granary of the world, was to be 
redeemed by irrigation from the encroachment 
of the desert, order and security were to be re- 
tored, labour to be set at work, and science and 
power to be devoted on a great scale to their 
only proper purpose, the increase of life. Here 
was an idea fit to inspire the most generous imagi- 
nation. Here, for all the idealism of youth and 
the ambition of maturity, for diplomatists, engi- 
neers, administrators, agriculturists, educationists, 
an opportunity for the work of a lifetime, a task 
to appeal at once to the imagination, the intel- 
lect, and the organizing capacity of practical 
men, a scheme in which all nations might be 
proud to participate, and by which Europe might 
show to the backward populations that the power 
she had won over Nature was to be used for 
the benefit of man, and that the science and the 
arms of the West were destined to recreate the 
life of the East. What happened, in fact? No 
sooner did the Germans approach the other na- 
tions for financial and poHtical support to their 



GERMANY AND TURKEY 97 

scheme than there was an outcry of jealousy, sus- 
picion, and rage. All the vested interests of the 
other States were up in arms. The proposed rail- 
way, it was said, would compete with the Trans- 
Siberian, with the French railways, with the ocean 
route to India, with the steamboats on the Tigris. 
Corn in Mesopotamia would bring down the price 
of com in Russia. German trade would oust 
British and French and Russian trade. Nor 
was that all. Under cover of an economic enter- 
prise, Germany was nursing political ambitions. 
She was aiming at Egypt and the Suez Canal, 
at the control of the Persian Gulf, at the domina- 
tion of Persia, at the route to India. Were these 
fears and suspicions justified? In the European 
anarchy, who can say? Certainly the entry of 
a new economic competitor, the exploitation of 
new areas, the opening out of new trade routes, 
must interfere with interests already established. 
That must always be so in a changing world. 
But no one would seriously maintain that that 
is a reason for abandoning new enterprises. But, 
it was urged, in fact Germany will take the oppor- 
tunity to squeeze out the trade of other nations 
and to constitute a German monopoly. Ger- 
many, it is true, was ready to give guarantees of 
the "open door." But then, what was the value 
of these guarantees? She asserted that her enter- 



98 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

prise was economic, and had no ulterior political 
gains. But who would believe her? Were not 
German Jingoes already rejoicing at the near 
approach of German armies to the Egyptian 
frontiers? In the European anarchy all these 
fears, suspicions, and rivalries were inevitable. 
But the British Government at least was not 
carried away by them. They were wilHng that 
British capital should co-operate on condition 
that the enterprise should be under international 
control. They negotiated for terms which would 
give equal control to Germany, England, and 
France. They failed to get these terms, why 
has not been made public. But Lord Cranborne, 
then Under-Secretary of State, said in the House 
of Commons that "the outcry which was made 
in this matter — I think it a very ill-formed 
outcry — ^made it exceedingly difficult for us to 
get the terms we required."^ And Sir Clinton 
Dawkins wrote in a letter to Herr Gwinner, the 
chief of the Deutsche Bank: "The fact is that 
the business has become involved in politics here, 
and has been sacrificed to the very violent and 
bitter feehng against Germany exhibited by the 
majority of newspapers and shared in by a large 
number of people." ^ British co-operation, there- 

^ Hansard, 1903, vol. 126, p. 120. 

' Nineteenth Century , June, 1909, vol. 65, p. 1090. 



GERMANY AND TURKEY 99 

fore, failed, as French and Russian had failed. 
The Germans, however, persevered with their 
enterprise, now a purely German one, and ul- 
timately with success. Their differences with 
Russia were arranged by an agreement about 
the Turko-Persian railways signed in 1911. An 
agreement with France, with regard to the rail- 
ways of Asiatic Turkey, was signed in February, 
1914, and one with England (securing our interests 
on the Persian Gulf) in June of the same year. 
Thus just before the war broke out this thorny 
question had, in fact, been settled to the satis- *. 
faction of all the Powers concerned. And on 
this two comments may be made. First, that 
the long friction, the press campaign, the rivalry 
of economic and political interests, had contrib- 
uted largely to the European tension. Secondly, 
that in spite of that, the question did get settled, 
and by diplomatic means. On this subject, at 
any rate, war was not "inevitable." Further, 
it seems clear that the British Government, so 
far from "hemming in" Germany in this matter, 
were ready from the first to accept, if not to 
welcome, her enterprise, subject to their quite 
legitimate and necessary preoccupation with their 
position on the Persian Gulf. It was the British 
Press and what lay behind it that prevented the 
co-operation of British capital. Meantime the 



100 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

economic penetration of Asia Minor by Germany 
had been accompanied by a political penetration 
at Constantinople. Already, as early as 1898, 
the Kaiser had announced at Damascus that the 
"three hundred milUons of Mussulmans who 
live scattered over the globe may be assured 
that the German Emperor will be at all times 
their friend." 

This speech, made immediately after the Ar- 
menian massacres, has been very properly rep- 
robated by all who are revolted at such atrocities. 
But the indignation of Englishmen must be tem- 
pered by shame when they remember that it 
was their own minister, still the idol of half the 
nation, who reinstated Turkey after the earher 
massacres in Bulgaria and put back the inhabi- 
tants of Macedonia for another generation under 
the murderous oppression of the Turks. The 
importance of the speech in the history of Europe 
is that it signalled the advent of German influence 
in the Near East. That influence was strength- 
ened on the Bosphorus after the Turkish revolu- 
tion of 1908, in spite of the original Anglophil 
bias of the Young Turks, and as some critics 
maintain, in consequence of the blundering of 
the British representatives. The mission of Von 
der Goltz in 1908 and that of Liman von Sanders 
in 1 914 put the Turkish army imder German 



AUSTRIA AND THE BALKANS loi 

command, and by the outbreak of the war German 
influence was predominant in Constantinople. 
This political influence was, no doubt, used, and 
intended to be used, to further German eco- 
nomic schemes. Germany, in fact, had come in to 
play the same game as the other Powers, and 
had played it with more skill and determination. 
She was, of course, here as elsewhere, a new and 
disturbing force in a system of forces which al- 
ready had difficulty in maintaining a precarious 
equilibrium. But to be a new and disturbing 
force is not to commit a crime. Once more the 
real culprit was not Germany nor any other 
Power. The real culprit was the European an- 
archy. 

14. Austria and the Balkans 

I turn now to the Balkan question. This is 
too ancient and too complicated to be even sum- 
marized here. But we must remind ourselves 
of the main situation. /^Primarily, the Balkan 
question is, or rather was, one between subject 
Christian populations and the Turks. But it 
has been complicated, not only by the quarrels 
of the subject populations among themselves, 
but by the rival ambitions and claims of Russia 
and Austria. The interest of Russia in the Bal- 
kans is partly one of racial sympathy, partly 



102 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

one of territorial ambition, for the road to Con- 
stantinople lies through Rumania and Bulgaria. 
It is this territorial ambition of Russia that has 
given occasion in the past to the intervention 
of the Western Powers, for until recently it was 
a fixed principle, both of French and British 
policy, to keep Russia out of the Mediterranean. 
Hence the Crimean War, and hence the disas- 
trous intervention of Disraeli after the treaty of 
San Stefano in 1878 — an intervention which 
perpetuated for years the Balkan hell. The 
interest of Austria in the peninsula depends 
primarily on the fact that the Austrian Empire 
contains a large Slav population desiring its 
independence, and that this national ambition 
of the Austrian Slavs finds in the independent 
kingdom of Serbia its natural centre of attrac- 
tion. The determination of Austria to retain 
her Slavs as unwilling citizens of her Empire 
brings her also into conflict with Russia, so far 
as Russia is the protector of the Slavs. The 
situation, and the danger with which it is preg- 
nant/may be reaHzed by an Englishman if he 
wiir suppose St. George's Channel and the At- 
lantic to be annihilated, and Ireland to touch, 
by a land frontier, on the one side Great Britain, 
on the other the United States. The friction 
and even the warfare which might have arisen 



AUSTRIA AND THE BALKANS 103 

between these two great Powers from the plots 
of American Fenians may readily be imagined. 
Something of that kind is the situation of Aus- 
tria in relation to Serbia and her protector, 
Russia. /' Further, Austria fears the occupation 
by any Slav State of any port on the coast line 
of the Adriatic, and herself desires a port on 
the iEgean. Add to this the recent German 
dream of the route from BerHn to Bagdad, and 
the European importance of what would other- 
wise be local disputes among the Balkan States 
becomes apparent. 

, During the period we are now considering 
the Balkan factor first came into prominence 
with the annexation by Austria of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina in 1908. Those provinces, it will 
be remembered, were handed over to Austrian 
protection at the Congress at Berlin in 1878. 
Austria went in and poHced the country, much 
as England went in and policed Egypt, and, 
from the material point of view, with similarly 
successful results. But, like England in Egypt, 
Austria was not sovereign there. Formal sov- 
ereignty still rested with the Turk. In 1909, 
during the Turkish revolution, Austria took 
the opportunity to throw off that nominal su- 
zerainty. Russia protested, Austria mobihzed 
against Serbia and Montenegro, and war seemed 



104 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

imminent. But the dramatic intervention of 
Germany "in shining armour" on the side of 
her ally resulted in a diplomatic victory for the 
Central Powers. Austria gained her point, and 
war, for the moment, was avoided. But such 
diplomatic victories are dangerous. Russia did 
not forget, and the events of 1909 were an opera- 
tive cause in the catastrophe of 1914- In acting 
as she did in this matter Austria-Hungary de- 
fied the pubUc law of Europe, and Germany 
supported her in doing so. 

The motives of Germany in taking this action 
are thus described, an4_;^bably with truth, ^ 
by Baron Beyens: "She could liot allow the ^ 
sohdity of the Triple Alliance to be shaken: > 
she had a debt of gratitude to pay to her ally, > 
who had supported her at the Congress of Al- J^i 
geciras. Finally, she beheved herself to be the //, 
object of an attempt at encirclement by France, 
England, and Russia, and was anxious to show 
that the gesture of putting her hand to the sword 
was enough to dispel the illusions of her adver- 
saries." ^ These are the kind of reasons that 
all Powers consider adequate where what they 
conceive to be their interests are involved. From 
any higher, more international point of view, 
they are no reasons at all. But in such a matter 
^ "L'Allemagne avant la guerre," p. 240. 



AUSTRIA AND THE BALKANS 105 

no Power is in a position to throw the first stone. 
The whole episode is a classical example for 
the normal working of the European anarchy. 
Austria-Hungary was primarily to blame, but 
Germany, who supported her, must take her 
share. The other Powers of Europe acquiesced 
for the sake of peace, and they could probably 
do no better. yThere will never be any guaran- 
tee for the public law of Europe until there is 
a public tribunal and a public force to see that 
its decisions are carried out. 

The next events of importance in this region 
were the two Balkan wars. We need not here 
go into the causes and results of these, except 
so far as to note that, once more, the rivalry 
of Russia and Austria played a disastrous part. 
It was the determination of Austria not to give 
Serbia access to the Adriatic that led Serbia 
to retain territories assigned by treaty to Bul- 
garia, and so precipitated the second Balkan 
war; for that war was due to the indignation 
caused in Bulgaria by the breach of faith, and 
is said to have been directly prompted by Aus- 
tria. The bad part played by Austria through- 
out this crisis is indisputable. But it must be 
observed that, by general admission, Germany 
throughout worked hand in hand with Sir Ed- 



io6 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

ward Grey to keep the peace of Europe, which, 
indeed, otherwise could not have been' kept. 
And nothing illustrates this better than that 
episode of 19 13 which is sometimes taken to 
throw discredit upon Germany. The episode 
was thus described by the Itanan minister, Gio- 
litti: "On the 9th of August, 1913, about a year 
before the war broke out, I, being then absent 
from Rome, received from my colleague, San 
Giuliano, the following telegram: 'Austria has 
communicated to us and to Germany her in- 
tention to act against Serbia, and defines such 
action as defensive, hoping to apply the casus 
foederis of the Triple Alliance, which I consider 
inapplicable. I intend to join forces with Ger- 
many to prevent any such action by Austria, 
but it will be necessary to say clearly that we 
do not consider such eventual action as defen- 
sive, and therefore do not believe that the casus 
foederis exists. Please telegraph to Rome if you 
approve.' 

"I replied that, 'if Austria intervenes against 
Serbia, it is evident that the casus foederis does 
not arise. It is an action that she undertakes 
on her own account, since there is no question 
of defence, as no one thinks of attacking her. 
It is necessary to make a declaration in this 
sense to Austria in the most formal way, and 



-,/;ri^^ 



AUSTRIA AND THE BALKANS 107 

it is to be wished that German action may dis- 
suade Austria from her most perilous adven- 
ture.'" ^ 

Now this statement shows upon the face of 
it two things. One, that Austria was prepared, 
by attacking Serbia, to unchain a European 
war; the other, that the Italian ministers joined 
with Germany to dissuade her. They were 
successful. Austria abandoned her project, and 
war was avoided. The episode is as discredit- 
able as you like to Austria. But, on the face 
of it, how does it discredit Germany? More, 
of course, may lie behind; but no evidence has 
been produced, so far as I am aware, to show 
that the Austrian project was approved or sup- 
ported by her ally. 

The Treaty of Bucharest, which concluded 
the second Balkan War, left all the parties con- 
cerned dissatisfied. But, in particular, it left 
the situation between Austria and Serbia and 
between Austria and Russia more strained than 
ever. It was this situation that was the proxi- 
mate cause of the present war. For, as we have 
seen, a quarrel between Austria and Russia over 

^ It is characteristic of the way history is written in 
time of war that M. Yves Guyot, citing GioHtti's state- 
ment, omits the references to Germany. See "Les causes 
et les consequences de la guerre," p. loi. 



io8 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

the Balkans must, given the system of alliances, 
unchain a European war. For producing that 
situation Austria-Hungary was mainly respon- 
sible. The part played by Germany was sec- 
ondary, and throughout the Balkan wars Ger- 
man diplomacy was certainly working, with 
England, for peace. "The diplomacy of the 
Wilhelmstrasse," says Baron Beyens, "appHed 
itself, above all, to calm the exasperation and 
the desire for intervention at the Ballplatz.'* 
"The Cabinet of Berlin did not follow that of 
Vienna in its tortuous policy of intrigues at Sofia 
and Bucharest. As M. Zimmermann said to 
me at the time, the Imperial Government con- 
tented itself with maintaining its neutrality 
in relation to the Balkans, abstaining from any 
intervention, beyond advice, in the fury of their 
quarrels. There is no reason to doubt the sin- 
cerity of this statement." ^ 

15. Morocco 

Let us turn now to the other storm-centre, 
Morocco. The salient features here were, first, 
the treaty of 1880, to which all the Great Powers, 
including, of course, Germany, were parties, 
and which guaranteed to the signatories most- 

^ "L'Allemagne avant la guerre," pp. 248, 262. 



MOROCCO 109 

favoured-nation treatment; secondly, the inter- 
est of Great Britain to prevent a strong Power 
from establishing itself opposite Gibraltar and 
threatening British control over the Straits; 
thirdly, the interest of France to annex Morocco 
and knit it up with the North African Empire; 
fourthly, the new colonial and trading interests 
of Germany, which, as she had formally an- 
nounced, could not leave her indifferent to any 
new dispositions of influence or territory in un- 
developed countries. For many years French 
ambitions in Morocco had been held in check 
by the British desire to maintain the status quo. 
But the Anglo-French Entente of 1904 gave 
France a free hand there in return for the aban- 
donment of French opposition to the British 
position in Egypt. The Anglo-French treaty 
of 1904 affirmed, in the clauses made pubHc, 
the independence and integrity of Morocco; but 
there were secret clauses looking to its partition. 
By these the British interest in the Straits was 
guaranteed by an arrangement which gave to 
Spain the reversion of the coast opposite Gibral- 
tar and a strip on the north-west coast, while 
leaving the rest of the country to fall to France. 
Germany was not consulted while these arrange- 
ments were being made, and the secret clauses 
of the treaty were, of course, not communicated 



no THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

to her. But it seems reasonable to suppose that 
they became known to, or at least were sus- 
pected by, the German Government shortly 
after they were adopted.^ And probably it was 
this that led to the dramatic intervention of 
the Kaiser at Tangier, ^ when he announced 
that the independence of Morocco was under 
German protection. The result was the Con- 
ference of Algeciras, at which the independence 
and integrity of Morocco was once more affirmed 

^ See "Morocco in Diplomacy," Chap. XVI. A dis- 
patch written by M. Leghait, the Belgian minister in 
Paris, on May 7, 1905, shows that rumour was busy on 
the subject. The secret clauses of the Franco-Spanish 
treaty were known to him, and these provided for an 
eventual partition of Morocco between France and Spain. 
He doubted whether there were secret clauses in the 
Anglo-French treaty — "but it is supposed that there is a 
certain tacit understanding by which England would 
leave France sufficient liberty of action in Morocco imder 
the reserve of the secret clauses of the Franco-Spanish 
arrangement, clauses if not imposed yet at least strongly 
supported by the London Cabinet." 

We know, of course, now, that the arrangement for 
the partition was actually embodied in secret clauses in 
the Anglo-French treaty. 

^ According to M. Yves Guyot, when the Kaiser was 
actually on his way to Tangier, he telegraphed from 
Lisbon to Prince Biilow abandoning the project. Prince 
Billow telegraphed back insisting, and the Kaiser yielded. 



MOROCCO III 

(the clauses looking to its partition being- still 
kept secret by the three Powers privy to them), 
and equal commercial facilities were guaranteed 
to all the Powers. Germany thereby obtained 
what she most wanted, what she had a right 
to by the treaty of 1880, and what otherwise 
might have been threatened by French occu- 
pation — the maintenance of the open door. But 
the French enterprise was not abandoned. Dis- 
putes with the natives such as always occur, 
or are manufactured, in these cases, led to fresh 
military intervention. At the same time, it 
v/as difficult to secure the practical application 
of the principle of equal commercial opportu- 
nity. An agreement of 1909 between France 
and Germany, whereby both Powers were to 
share equally in contracts for public works, 
was found in practice not to work. The Ger- 
mans pressed for its application to the new rail- 
ways projected in Morocco. The French de- 
layed, temporized, and postponed decision.^ 
Meantime they were strengthening their posi- 
tion in Morocco. The matter was brought to 
a head by the expedition to Fez. Initiated on 

^ See Bourdon, "L'finigme Allemande," Chap. II. 
This account, by a Frenchman, will not be suspected 
of anti-French or pro-German bias, and it is based on 
French official records. 



112 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

the plea of danger to the European residents 
at the capital (a plea which was disputed by 
the Germans and by many Frenchmen), it clearly 
heralded a definite final occupation of the coun- 
try. The patience of the Germans was exhausted, 
and the Kaiser made the coup of Agadir. There 
followed the Mansion House speech of Mr. Lloyd 
George and the Franco-German agreement of 
November, 1911, whereby Germany recognized 
a French protectorate in Morocco in return 
for concessions of territory in the French Congo. 
These are the bare facts of the Moroccan epi- 
sode. Much, of course, is stiU unrevealed, par- 
ticularly as to the motives and intentions of 
the Powers concerned. Did Germany, for in- 
stance, intend to seize a share of Morocco when 
she sent the Panther to Agadir? And was that 
the reason of the vigour of the British interven- 
tion? Possibly, but by no means certainly; 
the evidence accessible is conflicting. If Ger- 
many had that intention, she was frustrated 
by the solidarity shown between France and 
England, and the result was the final and definite 
absorption of Morocco in the French Empire, 
with the approval and active support of Great 
Britain, Germany being compensated by the 
cession of part of the French Congo. Once more 
a difficult question had been settled by diplo- 



MOROCCO 113 

macy, but only after it had twice brought Europe 
to the verge of war, and in such a way as to leave 
behind the bitterest feelings of anger and mis- 
trust in all the parties concerned. 

The facts thus briefly summarized here may 
be studied more at length, with the relevant 
documents, in Mr. Morel's book "Morocco in 
Diplomacy." The reader will form his own 
opinion on the part played by the various Powers. 
But I do not believe that any instructed and im- 
partial student will accept what appears to be 
the current English view, that the action of 
Germany in this episode was a piece of sheer 
aggression without excuse, and that the other 
Powers were acting throughout justly, hon- 
estly, and straightforwardly. 

The Morocco crisis, as we have already seen, 
produced in Germany a painful impression, and 
strengthened there the elements making for war. 
Thus Baron Beyens writes: — 

The Moroccan conflicts made many Germans hitherto 
pacific regard another war as a necessary evil.^ 

And again : — 

The pacific settlement of the conflict of 191 1 gave 
a violent impulse to the war party in Germany, to the 
propaganda of the League of Defence and the Navy 

^ "L'AUemagne avant la guerre," p. 216. 



114 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

League, and a greater force to their demands. To their 
dreams of hegemony and domination the desire for revenge 
against France now mingled its bitterness. A diplomatic 
success secured in an underground struggle signified noth- 
ing. War, war in the open, that alone, in the eyes of this 
rancorous tribe, could settle definitely the Moroccan 
question by incorporating Morocco and all French Africa 
in the colonial empire they hoped to create on the shores 
of the Mediterranean and in the heart of the Black Con- 
tinent.^ 

This we may take to be a correct descrip- 
tion of the attitude of the Pangermans. But 
there is no evidence that it was that of the na- 
tion. We have seen also that Baron Beyens' 
impression of the attitude of the German people, 
even after the Moroccan affair, was of a general 
desire for peace. ^ The crisis had been severe, 
but it had been tided over, and the Governments 
seem to have made renewed efforts to come 
into friendly relations. In this connection the 
following dispatch of Baron Beyens (June, 191 2) 
is worth quoting: — 

After the death of Edward VII, the Kaiser, as well 
as the Crown Prince, when they returned from Eng- 
land, where they had been courteously received, were 
persuaded that the coldness in the relations of the pre- 

^ "LAllemagne avant la guerre," p. 235. 
^ See above, p. 62. 



MOROCCO IIS 

ceding years was going to )deld to a cordial intimacy 
between the two Courts and that the causes of the mis- 
understanding between the two peoples would vanish 
with the past. His disillusionment, therefore, was cruel 
when he saw the Cabinet of London range itself last 
year on the side of France. But the Kaiser is obstinate, 
and has not abandoned the hope of reconquering the 
confidence of the Enghsh.^ 

This dispatch is so far borne out by the facts 
that in the year succeeding the Moroccan crisis 
a serious attempt was made to improve Anglo- 
German relations, and there is no reason to 
doubt that on both sides there was a genuine 
desire for an imderstanding. How that under- 
standing failed has already been indicated. ^ 
But even that failure did not ruin the relations 
between the two Powers. In the Balkan crisis, 
as we have seen and as is admitted on both sides, 
England and Germany worked together for 
peace. And the fact that a European conflagra- 
tion was then avoided, in spite of the tension 
between Russia and Austria, is a strong proof 
that the efforts of Sir Edward Grey were sin- 
cerely and effectively seconded by Germany.^ 

^This view is reaffirmed by Baron Beyens in "L'Alle- 
magne avant la guerre," p. 29. 
^ See above, p. 76. 
^ Above, p. 105. 



ii6 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

1 6. The Last Years 

We have reached, then, the year 1913, and 
the end of the Balkan wars, without discover- 
ing in German poHcy any clear signs of a deter- 
mination to produce a European war. We have 
found all the Powers, Germany included, contend- 
ing for territory and trade at the risk of the 
peace of Europe; we have found Germany suc- 
cessfully developing her interests in Turkey; 
we have found England annexing the South 
African republics, France Morocco, Italy Tri- 
poli; we have found all the Powers stealing in 
China, and in all these transactions we have 
found them continually on the point of being 
at one another's throats. Nevertheless, some 
last instinct of self-preservation has enabled 
them, so far, to pull up in time. The crises had 
been overcome without a war. Yet they had, 
of course, produced their effects. Some states- 
men probably, like Sir Edward Grey, had had 
their passion for peace confirmed by the dangers 
encountered. In others, no doubt, an opposite 
effect had been produced, and very likely by 
1 91 3 there were prominent men in Europe con- 
vinced that war must come, and manoeuvring 
only that it should come at the time and occasion 
most favourable to their country. That, accord- 



THE LAST YEARS 117 

ing to M. Cambon, was now the attitude of the 
German Emperor. M. Cambon bases this view 
on an alleged conversation between the Kaiser 
and the King of the Belgians.^ The conversa- 
tion has been denied by the German official 
organ, but that, of course, is no proof that it did 
not take place, and there is nothing improbable 
in what M. Cambon narrates. 

The conversation is supposed to have occurred 
in November, 1913, at a time when, as we have 
seen, 2 there was a distinct outburst in France 
of anti-German chauvinism, and when the arm- 
ing and counter-arming of that year had exas- 
perated opinion to an extreme degree. The 
Kaiser is reported to have said that war between 
Germany and France was inevitable. If he 
did, it is clear from the context that he said it 
in the belief that French chauvinism would 
produce war. For the King of the Belgians, 
in replying, is stated to have said that it was 
"a travesty of the French Government to inter- 

^ French Yellow Book, No, 6. In "L'Allemagne avant 
la guerre" (p. 24) Baron Beyens states that this con- 
versation was held at Potsdam on November 5th or 6th; 
the Kaiser said that war between Germany and France 
was "inevitable and near." Baron Beyens, presumably, 
is the authority from whom M. Cambon derives his in- 
formation. 

* Above, p. 28. 



ii8 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

pret it in that sense, and to let oneself be mis- 
led as to the sentiments of the French nation 
by the ebullitions of a few irresponsible spirits 
or the intrigues of imscrupulous agitators." 
It should be observed also that this supposed 
attitude on the part of the Kaiser is noted as 
a change, and that he is credited with having 
previously stood for peace against the designs of 
the German Jingoes. His personal influence, 
says the dispatch, "had been exerted on many 
critical occasions in support of peace." The 
fact of a change of mind in the Kaiser is ac- 
cepted also by Baron Beyens. 

Whatever may be the truth in this matter, 
neither the German nor the French nor our own 
Government can then have abandoned the effort 
at peaceable settlement. For, in fact, by the 
summer of 191 4, agreements had been made 
between the Great Powers which settled for 
the time being the questions immediately out- 
standing. It is understood that a new parti- 
tion of African territory had been arranged to 
meet the claims and interests of Germany, France, 
and England alike. The question of the Bagdad 
railway had been settled, and everything seemed 
to favour the maintenance of peace, when, sud- 
denly, the murder of the Archduke sprang upon 
a dismayed Europe the crisis that was at last 



THE LAST YEARS 119 

to prove fatal. The events that followed, so 
far as they can be ascertained from published 
documents, have been so fully discussed that it 
would be superfluous for me to go over the ground 
again in all its detail. But I will indicate briefly 
what appear to me to be the main points of 
importance in fixing the responsibiUty for what 
occurred. 

First, the German view, that England is re- 
sponsible for the war because she did not pre- 
vent Russia from entering upon it, I regard as 
childish, if it is not simply sophistical. The 
German Powers dehberately take an action which 
the whole past history of Europe shows must 
almost certainly lead to a European war, and 
they then turn round upon Sir Edward Grey 
and put the blame on him because he did not 
succeed in preventing the consequences of their 
own action. "He might have kept Russia out." 
Who knows whether he might? What we do 
know is that it was Austria and Germany who 
brought her in. The German view is really 
only intelligible upon the assumption that Ger- 
many has a right to do what she pleases and 
that the Powers that stand in her way are by 
definition peacebreakers. It is this extraordi- 
nary attitude that has been one of the factors 
for making war in Europe. 



I20 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

Secondly, I am not, and have not been, one 
of the critics of Sir Edward Grey. It is, indeed, 
possible, as it is always possible after the event, 
to suggest that some other course might have 
been more successful in avoiding war. But 
that is conjecture. I, at any rate, am convinced, 
as I believe every one outside Germany is con- 
vinced, that Sir Edward Grey throughout the 
negotiations had one object only — to avoid, if 
he could, the catastrophe of war. 

Thirdly, the part of Austria-Hungary is per- 
fectly clear. She was determined now, as in 
1913, to have out her quarrel with Serbia, at 
the risk of a European war. Her guilt is clear 
and definite, and it is only the fact that we are 
not directly fighting her with British troops that 
has prevented British opinion from fastening 
upon it as the main occasion of the war. 

But this time, quite clearly, Austria was backed 
by Germany. Why this change in German 
policy? So far as the Kaiser himself is con- 
cerned, there can be little doubt that a main 
cause was the horror he felt at the assassina- 
tion of the Archduke. The absurd system of 
autocracy gives to the emotional reactions of 
an individual a preposterous weight in deter- 
mining world-policy; and the almost insane 
feeling of the Kaiser about the sanctity of crowned 



THE LAST YEARS 121 

heads was no doubt a main reason why Ger- 
many backed Austria in sending her ultimatum 
to Serbia. According to Baron Beyens, on hearing 
the news of the murder of the Archduke the 
Kaiser changed colour, and exclaimed: "All the 
effort of my life for twenty-five years must be 
begun over again!" ^ A tragic cry which in- 
dicates, what I personally believe to be the case, 
that it has been the constant effort of the Kaiser 
to keep the peace in Europe, and that he fore- 
saw now that he would no longer be able to resist 
war. 

So far, however, it would only be the war 
between Austria and Serbia that the Kaiser 
would be prepared to sanction. He might hope 
to avoid the European war. And, in fact, there 
is good reason to suppose that both he and the 
German Foreign Office did cherish that hope 
or delusion. They had bluffed Russia off in 
1908. They had the dangerous idea that they 
might bluff her off again. In this connection 
Baron Beyens records a conversation with his 
colleague, M. Bollati, the Italian Ambassador 
at BerHn, in which the latter took the view that 

at Vienna as at Berlin they were persuaded that Russia, 
in spite of the official assurances exchanged quite re- 

^ "L'Allemagne avant la guerre," p. 273. 



122 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

cently between the Tsar and M. Poincare, as to the 
complete preparations of the armies of the two alhes, 
was not in a position to sustain a European war and 
would not dare to plunge into so perilous an adventure. 

Baron Beyens continues: — 

At Berlin the opinion that Russia was unable to face 
a European war prevailed not only in the official world 
and in society, but among all the manufacturers who 
speciahzed in the construction of armaments. M. Krupp, 
the best qualified among them to express an opinion, 
announced on the 28th July, at a table next mine at the 
Hotel Bristol, that the Russian artillery was neither good 
nor complete, while that of the German army had never 
been of such superior quahty. It would be folly on the 
part of Russia, the great maker of guns concluded, to 
dare to make war on Germany and Austria in these con- 
ditions.^ 

But while the attitude of the German Foreign 
Office and (as I am inclined to suppose) of the 
Kaiser may have been that which I have just 
suggested, there were other and more important 
factors to be considered. It appears almost 
certain that at some point in the crisis the con- 
trol of the situation was taken out of the hands 
of the civilians by the military. The position 
of the military is not difficult to understand. 
They believed, as professional soldiers usually 



1 1' 



L'AUemagne avant la guerre," p. 280 seq. 



THE LAST YEARS 123 

do, in the "inevitability" of war, and they had, 
of course, a professional interest in making war. 
Their attitude may be illustrated from a state- 
ment attributed by M. Bourdon to Prince Lich- 
nowsky in 1912:^ "The soldiers think about 
war. It is their business and their duty. They 
tell us that the German army is in good order, 
that the Russian army has not completed its or- 
ganization, that it would be a good moment . . . 
but for twenty years they have been saying the 
same thing." The passage is significant. It 
shows us exactly what it is we have to dread 
in "militarism." The danger in a military State 
is always that when a crisis comes the soldiers 
will get control, as they seem to have done on 
this occasion. From their point of view there 
was good reason. They knew that France and 
Russia, on a common understanding, were mak- 
ing enormous military preparations; they knew 
that these preparations would mature by the 
beginning of 191 7; they knew that Germany 
would fight then at a less advantage; they be- 
lieved she would then have to fight, and they 
said, "Better fight now." The following dis- 
patch of Baron Beyens, dated July 26th, may 
probably be taken as fairly representing their 
attitude: — 

^ See "L'finigme Allemande," p. 96. 



124 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

To justify these conclusions I must remind you of the 
opinion which prevails in the German General Staff, 
that war with France and Russia is unavoidable and 
near, an opinion which the Emperor has been induced to 
share. Such a war, ardently desired by the military and 
Pangerman party, might be undertaken to-day, as this 
party think, in circumstances which are extremely favour- 
able to Germany, and which probably will not again 
present themselves for some time. Germany has finished 
the strengthening of her army which was decreed by the 
law of 19 1 2, and, on the other hand, she feels that she 
cannot carry on indefinitely a race in armaments with 
Russia and France which would end by her ruin. The 
Wehrbeitrag has been a disappointment for the Imperial 
Government, to whom it has demonstrated the limits of 
the national wealth. Russia has made the mistake of 
making a display of her strength before having finished 
her military reorganization. That strength will not be 
formidable for several years: at the present moment 
it lacks the railway lines necessary for its deployment. 
As to France, M. Charles Humbert has revealed her 
deficiency in guns of large calibre, but apparently it is 
this arm that will decide the fate of battles. For the 
rest, England, which during the last two years Germany 
has been trying, not without some success, to detach 
from France and Russia, is paralysed by internal dis- 
sensions and her Irish quarrels.^ 

It will be noticed that Baron Beyens sup- 
poses the Kaiser to have been in the hands of 
the soldiers as early as July 26th. On the other 

^ Second Belgian Grey Book, No. 8. 



THE LAST YEARS 125 

hand, as late as August 5th Beyens believed 
that the German Foreign Office had been work- 
ing throughout for peace. Describing an inter- 
view he had had on that day with Herr Zimmer- 
mann, he writes: — 

From this interview I brought away the impression 
that Herr Zimmermann spoke to me with his customary 
sincerity, and that the Department for Foreign Affairs 
since the opening of the Austro-Serbian conflict had 
been on the side of a peaceful solution, and that it was 
not due to it that its views and counsels had not pre- 
vailed. ... A superior power intervened to precipitate 
the march of events. It was the ultimatum from Ger- 
many to Russia, sent to St. Petersburg at the very mo- 
ment when the Vienna Cabinet was showing itself more 
disposed to conciUation, which let loose the war.^ 

Why was that ultimatum sent? According 
to the German apologists, it was sent because 
Russia had mobilized on the German frontier 
at the critical moment, and so made war in- 
evitable. There is, indeed, no doubt that the 
tension was enormously increased throughout 
the critical days by mobilization and rumours 
of mobilization. The danger was clearly pointed 
out as early as July 26th in a dispatch of the 
Austrian Ambassador at Petrograd to his Gov- 
ernment: — 

^ Second Belgian Grey Book, No. 52. 



126 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

As the result of reports about measures taken for mob- 
ilization of Russian troops, Count Pourtales [German 
Ambassador at Petrograd] has called the Russian Minis- 
ter's attention in the most serious manner to the fact 
that nowadays measures of mobilization would be a 
highly dangerous form of diplomatic pressure. For in that 
event the purely military consideration of the question 
by the General Staffs would find expression, and if that 
button were once touched in Germany the situation would 
get out of control.^ 

On the other hand, it must be remembered 
that in 1909 Austria had mobilized against Serbia 
and Montenegro,^ and in 1912-13 Russia and 
Austria had mobilized against one another with- 
out war ensuing in either case. Moreover, in 
view of the slowness of Russian mobilization, 
it is difficult to beheve that a day or two would 
make the difference between security and ruin 
to Germany. However, it is possible that the 
Kaiser was so advised by his soldiers, and gen- 
uinely believed the country to be in danger. 
We do not definitely know. What we do know 
is, that it was the German ultimatmn that pre- 
cipitated the war. 

We are informed, however, by Baron Beyens 
that even at the last moment the German Foreign 
Office made one more effort for peace : — 

^ Austrian Red Book, No. 28. ^ See p. 103. 



THE MORAL 127 

As no reply had been received from St. Petersburg 
by noon the next day [after the dispatch of the German 
ultimatum], MM. de Jagow and Zimmermann (I have it 
from the latter) hurried to the Chancellor and the Kaiser 
to prevent the issue of the order for general mobilization, 
and to persuade his Majesty to wait till the following day. 
It was the last effort of their dying pacifism, or the last 
awakening of their conscience. Their ejfforts were broken 
against the irreducible obstinacy of the Minister of War 
and the army chiefs, who represented to the Kaiser the 
disastrous consequences of a delay of twenty-four hours. ^ 

17. The Responsibility and the Moral 

It will be seen from this brief account that 
so far as the published evidence goes I agree 
with the general view outside Germany that 
the responsibility for the war at the last moment 
rests with the Powers of Central Europe. The 
Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, which there can 
be no reasonable doubt was known to and ap- 
proved by the German Government, was the 
first crime. And it is hardly palliated by the 
hope, which no well-informed men ought to 
have entertained, that Russia could be kept 
out and the war limited to Austria and Serbia. 
The second crime was the German ultimatum 
to Russia and to France. I have no desire what- 

^ "L'AUemagne avant la guerre," p. 301. 



/ 



128 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

ever to explain away or palliate these clear facts. 
But it was not my object in writing this pamph- 
let to reiterate a judgment which must already 
be that of all my readers. What I have wanted 
to do is to set the tragic events of those few 
days of diplomacy in their proper place in the 
whole complex of international politics. And 
what I do dispute with full conviction is the 
view which seems to be almost universally held 
in England, that Germany had been pursuing for 
years past a policy of war, while all the other 
Powers had been pursuing a policy of peace. 
The war finally provoked by Germany was, I 
am convinced, conceived as a "preventive war." 
And that means that it was due to the behef 
that if Germany did not fight then she would 
be compelled to fight at a great disadvantage 
later. I have written in vain if I have not con- 
vinced the reader that the European anarchy 
inevitably provokes that state of mind in the 
Powers, and that they all live constantly under 
the threat of war. To understand the action 
of those who had power in Germany during the 
critical days it is necessary to bear in mind all 
that I have brought into relief in the preceding 
pages: the general situation, which grouped 
the Powers of the Entente against those of the 
Triple Alliance; the armaments and counter- 



THE MORAL 129 

armaments; the colonial and economic rivalr)/; 
the racial and national problems in South-East 
Europe; and the long series of previous crises, 
in each case tided over, but leaving behind, 
every one of them, a legacy of fresh mistrust 
and fear, which made every new crisis worse 
than the one before. I do not palhate the re- 
sponsibility of Germany for the outbreak of 
war. But that responsibility is embedded in 
and conditioned by a responsibility deeper and 
more general — the responsibility of all the Powers 
alike for the European anarchy. 

If I have convinced the reader of this he will, 
I think, feel no difi&culty in following me to a 
further conclusion. Since the causes of this 
war, and of all wars, lie so deep in the whole 
international system, they cannot be perma- 
nently removed by the "punishment" or the 
"crushing" or any other drastic treatment of 
any Power, let that Power be as guilty as you 
please. Whatever be the issue of this war, one 
thing is certain: it will bring no lasting peace 
to Europe unless it brings a radical change both 
in the spirit and in the organization of inter- 
national politics. 

What that change must be may be deduced 
from the foregoing discussion of the causes of 
the war. The war arose from the rivalry of 



130 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

States in the pursuit of power and wealth. This 
is universally admitted. Whatever be the di- 
versities of opinion that prevail in the different 
countries concerned, nobody pretends that the 
war arose out of any need of civilization, out 
of any generous impulse or noble ambition. It 
arose, according to the popular view in Eng- 
land, solely and exclusively out of the ambition 
of Germany to seize territory and power. It 
arose, according to the popular German view, 
out of the ambition of England to attack and 
destroy the rising power and wealth of Germany. 
Thus to each set of belligerents the war appears 
as one forced upon them by sheer wickedness, 
and from neither point of view has it any kind 
of moral justification. These views, it is true, are 
both too simple for the facts. But the account 
given in the preceding pages, imperfect as it 
is, shows clearly, what further knowledge will 
only make more explicit, that the war proceeded 
out of rivalry for empire between all the Great 
Powers in every part of the world. The con- 
tention between France and Germany for the 
control of Morocco, the contention between 
Russia and Austria for the control of the Balkans, 
the contention between Germany and the other 
Powers for the control of Turkey — these were 
the causes of the war. And this contention 



THE MORAL 131 

for control is prompted at once by the desire 
for power and the desire for wealth. In practice 
the two motives are found conjoined. But to 
different minds they appeal in different pro- 
portions. There is such a thing as the love of 
power for its own sake. It is known in individ- 
uals, and it is known in States, and it is the most 
disastrous, if not the most evil, of the human 
passions. The modern German philosophy of 
the State turns almost exclusively upon this 
idea; and here, as elsewhere, by giving to a pas- 
sion an intellectual form, the Germans have 
magnified its force and enhanced its monstrosity. 
But the passion itself is not peculiar to Germans, 
nor is it only they to whom it is and has been 
a motive of State. Power has been the fetish 
of kings and emperors from the beginning of 
political history, and it remains to be seen whether 
it will not continue to inspire democracies. The 
passion for empire ruined the Athenian democ- 
racy, no less than the Spartan or the Venetian 
oligarchy, or the Spain of Philip II, or the France 
of the Monarchy and the Empire. But it still 
makes its appeal to the romantic imagination. 
Its intoxication has lain behind this war, and 
it will prompt many others if it survives, when 
the war is over, either in the defeated or the 
conquering nations. It is not only the jingoism 



132 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

of Germany that Europe has to fear. It is the 
jingoism that success may make supreme in 
any country that may be victorious. 

But while power may be sought for its own 
sake, it is commonly sought by modern States 
as a means to wealth. It is the pursuit of mar- 
kets and concession and outlets for capital that 
lies behind the colonial policy that leads to wars. 
States compete for the right to exploit the weak, 
and in this competition Governments are prompted 
or controlled by financial interests. The British 
went to Egypt for the sake of the bondholders, 
the French to Morocco for the sake of its min- 
erals and wealth. In the Near East and the Far 
it is commerce, concessions, loans that have led 
to the rivalry of the Powers, to war after war, 
to "punitive expeditions" and — irony of ironies! — 
to "indemnities" exacted as a new and special 
form of robbery from peoples who rose in the 
endeavour to defend themselves against rob- 
bery. The Powers combine for a moment to 
suppress the common victim, the next they are 
at one another's throats over the spoil. That 
really is the simple fact about the quarrels of 
States over colonial and commercial poHcy. So 
long as the exploitation of undeveloped coun- 
tries is directed by companies having no object 
in view except dividends, so long as financiers 



THE SETTLEMENT 133 

prompt the policy of Governments, so long as 
military expeditions, leading up to annexations, 
are undertaken behind the back of the pubHc 
for reasons that cannot be avowed, so long will 
the nations end with war, where they have begun 
by theft, and so long will thousands and millions 
of innocent and generous lives, the best of Europe, 
be thrown away to no purpose, because, in the 
dark, sinister interests have been risking the peace 
of the world for the sake of money in their pockets. 
It is these tremendous underlying facts and 
tendencies that suggest the true moral of this 
war. It is these that have to be altered if we 
are to avoid future wars on a scale as great. 

18. The Settlement 

And now, with all this in our minds, let us 
turn to consider the vexed question of the settle- 
ment after the war. There lies before the Western 
world the greatest of all choices, the choice be- 
tween destruction and salvation. But that choice 
does not depend merely on the issue of the war. 
It depends upon what is done or left undone by 
the co-operation of all when the war does at 
last stop. Two conceptions of the future are 
contending in all nations. One is the old bad 
one, that which has presided hitherto at every 



134 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

peace and prepared every new war. It assumes 
that the object of war is solely to win victory, 
and the object of victory solely to acquire more 
power and territory. On this view, if the Germans 
win, they are to annex territory east and west: 
Belgium and half France, say the more violent; 
the Baltic provinces of Russia, strategic points 
of advantage, say the more moderate. On the 
other hand, if the Allies win, the Allies are to 
divide the German colonies, the French are to 
regain Alsace-Lorraine, and, as the jingoes add, 
they are to take the whole of the German prov- 
inces on the left bank of the Rhine, and even 
territory beyond it. The Italians are to have 
not only Italia Irredenta but hundreds of thou- 
sands of reluctant Slavs in Dalmatia; the Russians 
Constantinople, and perhaps Posen and Galicia. 
Further, such money indemnities are to be taken 
as it may prove possible to exact from an already 
ruined foe; trade and commerce with the enemy 
is to be discouraged or prohibited; and, above 
all, a bitter and unforgiving hatred is to reign 
for ever between the victor and the vanquished. 
This is the kind of view of the settlement of Eu- 
rope that is constantly appearing in the articles 
and correspondence of the Press of all countries. 
Ministers are not as careful as they should be 
to repudiate it. The nationalist and imperialist 



THE SETTLEMENT 135 

cliques of all nations endorse it. It is, one could 
almost fear, for something like this that the peo- 
ples are being kept at war, and the very existence 
of civilization jeopardized. 

Now, whether anything of this kind really can 
be achieved by the war, whether there is the 
least probability that either group of Powers can 
win such a victory as would make the programme 
on either side a reality, I will not here discuss. 
The reader will have his own opinion. What 
I am concerned with is the effect any such solu- 
tion would have upon the future of Europe. Those 
who desire such a close may be divided into two 
classes. The one frankly believes in war, in domi- 
nation, and in power. It accepts as inevitable, 
and welcomes as desirable, the perpetual armed 
conflict of nations for territory and trade. It 
does not believe in, and it does not want, a dura- 
ble peace. It holds that all peace is, must be, 
and ought to be, a precarious and regrettable 
interval between wars. I do not discuss this 
view. Those who hold it are not accessible to 
argument, and can only be met by action. There 
are others, however, who do think war an evil, 
who do want a durable peace, but who genuinely 
believe that the way indicated is the best way to 
achieve it. With them it is permitted to discuss, 
and it should be possible to do so without bitter- 



136 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

ness or rage on either side. For as to the end, 
there is agreement; the difference of opinion is 
as to the means. The position taken is this: 
The enemy deUberately made this war of aggres- 
sion against us, without provocation, in order 
to destroy us. If it had not been for this wicked- 
ness there would have been no war. The enemy, 
therefore, must be punished; and his punishment 
must make him permanently impotent to repeat 
the offence. That having been done, Europe will 
have durable peace, for there will be no one left 
able to break it who will also want to break it. 
Now, I believe all this to be demonstrably a 
miscalculation. It is contradicted both by our 
knowledge of the way human nature works and 
by the evidence of history. In the first place, 
wars do not arise because only one nation or group 
of nations is wicked, the others being good. For 
the actual outbreak of this war, I believe, as I 
have already said, that a few powerful individuals 
in Austria and in Germany were responsible. 
But the ultimate causes of war lie much deeper. 
In them all States are implicated. And the pxmish- 
ment, or even the annihilation, of any one nation 
would leave those causes still subsisting. Wipe 
out Germany from the map, and, if you do noth- 
ing else, the other nations will be at one another's 
throats in the old way, for the old causes. They 



THE SETTLEMENT 137 

would be quarrelling, if about nothing else, about 
the division of the spoil. While nations continue 
to contend for power, while they refuse to sub- 
titute law for force, there will continue to be 
wars. And while they devote the best of their 
brains and the chief of their resources to arma- 
ments and military and naval organization, each 
war will become more terrible, more destructive, 
and more ruthless than the last. This is irrefut- 
able truth. I do not beheve there is a man or 
woman able to imderstand the statement who 
will deny it. 

In the second place, the enemy nation cannot, 
in fact, be annihilated, nor even so far weakened, 
relatively to the rest, as to be incapable of recover- 
ing and putting up another fight. The notions 
of dividing up Germany among the Allies, or of 
adding France and the British Empire to Ger- 
many, are sheerly fantastic. There will remain, 
when all is done, the defeated nations — if, in- 
deed, any nation be defeated. Their territories 
cannot be permanently occupied by enemy troops; 
they themselves cannot be permanently prevented 
by physical force from building up new armaments. 
So long as they want their revenge, they will 
be able sooner or later to take it. If evidence of 
this were wanted, the often-quoted case of Prussia 
after Jena will suffice. 



138 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

And, in the third place, the defeated nations, 
so treated, will, in fact, want their revenge. There 
seems to be a curious illusion abroad, among the 
English and their allies, that not only is Germany 
guilty of the war, but that all Germans know it 
in their hearts; that, being guilty, they will fully 
accept punishment, bow patiently beneath the 
yoke, and become in future good, harmonious 
members of the European family. The illusion 
is grotesque. There is hardly a German who 
does not believe that the war was made by Russia 
and by England; that Germany is the innocent 
victim; that all right is on her side, and all wrong 
on that of the Allies. If, indeed, she were beaten, 
and treated as her "punishers" desire, this belief 
would be strengthened, not weakened. In every 
German heart would abide, deep and strong, the 
sense of an iniquitous triumph of what they be- 
lieve to be wrong over right, and of a duty to 
redress that iniquity. Outraged national pride 
would be reinforced by the sense of injustice; 
and the next war, the war of revenge, would be 
prepared for, not only by every consideration of 
interest and of passion, but by every cogency of 
righteousness. The fact that the Germans are 
mistaken in their view of the origin of the war 
has really nothing to do with the case. It is not 
the truth, it is what men believe to be the truth, 



THE SETTLEMENT 139 

that influences their action. And I do not think 
any study of dispatches is going to alter the 
German view of the facts. 

But it is sometimes urged that the war was 
made by the German militarists, that it is unpop- 
ular with the mass of the people, and that if 
Germany is utterly defeated the people will rise 
and depose their rulers, become a true democracy, 
and join fraternal hands with the other nations 
of Europe. That Germany should become a true 
democracy might, indeed, be as great a guarantee 
of peace as it might be that other nations, called 
democratic, should really become so in their for- 
eign policy as well as in their domestic affairs. 
But what proud nation will accept democracy 
as a gift from insolent conquerors? One thing 
that the war has done, and one of the worst, is 
to make of the Kaiser, to every German, a symbol 
of their national unity and national force. Just 
because we abuse their militarism, they afiSrm 
and acclaim it; just because we attack their gov- 
erning class, they rally round it. Nothing could 
be better calculated than this war to strengthen 
the hold of mihtarism in Germany, unless it be 
the attempt of her enemies to destroy her mili- 
tarism by force. For consider! In the view we 
are examining it is proposed, first to kill the 
greater part of her combatants, next to invade 



I40 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

her territory, destroy her towns and villages, and 
exact (for there are those who demand it) penal- 
ties in kind, actual tit for tat, for what Germans 
have done in Belgium. It is proposed to enter 
the capital in triumph. It is proposed to shear 
away huge pieces of German territory. And then, 
when all this has been done, the conquerors are 
to turn to the German nation and say: "Now, 
all this we have done for your good! Depose 
your wicked rulers I Become a democracy! Shake 
hands and be a good fellow!" Does it not sound 
grotesque? But, really, that is what is proposed. 
I have spoken about British and French pro- 
posals for the treatment of Germany. But all 
that I have said appHes, of course, equally to 
German proposals of the same kind for the treat- 
ment of the conquered AUies. That way is no 
way towards a durable peace. If it be replied 
that a durable peace is not intended or desired, 
I have no more to say. If it be repUed that punish- 
ment for its own sake is more important than 
civihzation, and must be performed at all costs 
—fiat justitia, ruat cesium — then, once more, I 
have nothing to say. I speak to those, and to 
those only, who do desire a durable peace, and 
who have the courage and the imagination to 
believe it to be possible, and the determination 
to work for it. And to them I urge that the 



THE CHANGE NEEDED 141 

course I have been discussing cannot lead to their 
goal. What can? 

19. The Change Needed 

First, a change of outlook. We must give up, 
in all nations, this habit of dwelling on the unique 
and peculiar wickedness of the enemy. We must 
recognize that behind the acts that led up to the 
immediate outbreak of war, behind the crimes 
and atrocities to which the war has led, as wars 
always have led, and always will lead — ^behind 
all that lies a great complex of feeling, prejudice, 
tradition, false theory, in which all nations and 
all individuals of all nations are involved. Most 
men believe, feel, or passively accept that power 
and wealth are the objects States ought to pursue; 
that in pursuing these objects they are bound by 
no code of right in their relations to one another; 
that law between them is, and must be, as fragile 
as a cobweb stretched before the mouth of a can- 
non; that force is the only rule and the only de- 
terminant of their differences, and that the only 
real question is when and how the appeal to force 
may most advantageously be made. This phi- 
losophy has been expressed with peculiar frankness 
and brutality by Germans. But most honest and 
candid men, I beheve, will agree that that is 



142 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

the way they, too, have been accustomed to think 
of international affairs. And if illustration were 
wanted, let them remember the kind of triumphant 
satisfaction with which the failure of the Hague 
conferences to achieve any radical results was 
generally greeted, and the contemptuous and al- 
most abhorring pity meted out to the people 
called "pacifists." Well, the war has come! We 
see now, not only guess, what it means. If that 
experience has not made a deep impression on 
every man and woman, if something like a con- 
version is not being generally operated, then, in- 
deed, nothing can save mankind from the hell of 
their own passions and imbecilities. 

But if otherwise, if that change is going on, 
then the way to deliverance is neither difi&cult 
nor obscure. It does not He in the direction of 
crushing anybody. It lies in the taking of certain 
determinations, and the embodying of them in 
certain institutions. 

First, the nations must submit to law and to 
right in the settlement of their disputes. 

Secondly, they must reserve force for the coer- 
cion of the law-breaker; and that impHes that 
they should construct rules to determine who the 
law-breaker is. Let him be defined as the one 
who appeals to force, instead of appealing to law 
and right by machinery duly provided for that 



THE CHANGE NEEDED 143 

purpose, and the aggressor is immediately under 
the ban of the civihzed world, and met by an 
overwhelming force to coerce him into order. In 
constructing machinery of this kind there is no 
intellectual difi&culty greater than that which has 
confronted every attempt everywhere to sub- 
stitute order for force. The difficulty is moral, 
and lies in the habits, passions, and wills of men. 
But it should not be concluded that, if such a 
moral change could be operated, there would be 
no need for the machinery. It would be as reason- 
able to say that Governments, law-courts, and 
police were superfluous, since, if men were good, 
they would not require them, and if they are 
bad they will not tolerate them. Whatever new 
need, desire, and conviction comes up in mankind, 
needs embodiment in forms before it can become 
operative. And, as the separate colonies of Amer- 
ica could not effectively unite until they had 
formed a Constitution, so will the States of Europe 
and the world be unable to maintain the peace, 
even though all of them should wish to maintain 
it, unless they will construct some kind of machin- 
ery for settling their disputes and organizing their 
common purposes, and will back that machinery 
by force. If they will do that they may construct 
a real and effective counterpoise to aggression 
from any Power in the future. If they will not 



144 THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY 

do it, their precautions against any one Power 
will be idle, for it will be from some other Power 
that the danger will come. I put it to the reader 
at the end of this study, which I have made with 
all the candour and all the honesty at my disposal, 
and which I believe to represent essentially the 
truth, whether or no he agrees that the European 
anarchy is the real cause of European wars, and 
if he does, whether he is ready for his part to 
support a serious effort to end it. 

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"The first great book on the war. ... It 
deals, and deals worthily and greatly, with the 
mightiest issues ever known to the world. . . . 
By one of those rare men in whom hard thinking 
and clear writing go together. . . . Alive and 
luminous; adorned with portraits, enriched with 
studies of character and performance." — New 
York Tribune. 

"A genuine book, a great and necessary adven- 
ture in difficult truth-telling." — London Saturday 
Review. 

"A rare eloquence and a wealth of illustration 
which recalls Burke. ... A storehouse of polit- 
ical thought, set out with a precision and an elo- 
quence which have been absent from the literature 
of politics. . . . Every page is Ht up by some 
memorable phrase." — The London Times. 

"A big book and a valuable book. A stirring 
appeal, able, eloquent, vigorous and sincere. Here 
at last is a man who has a definite thesis to main- 
tain." — New Republic. 



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